


Draco Malfoy and the Master of Death

by ObsidianPen



Series: Haunted and Hunted [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Drama, Emotional Roller Coaster, Psychological Drama, probably, too many feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2017-02-17
Packaged: 2018-09-11 14:15:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 23,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8984887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ObsidianPen/pseuds/ObsidianPen
Summary: Draco goes looking for ghosts.





	1. The Yew in the Snow

* * *

 

White.

It went on, and on, and on.

Draco wasn’t exactly sure why he had come. He knew that there was nothing to be found in this vast and empty landscape. Nothing could survive here without extreme enforcements, magical or otherwise.

Maybe it was just because he knew now that this was where the Chosen One had been kept for so long. That this was where is had all begun.

Antarctica was like a blank canvas. Ice, light, and snow.

Draco, however, was quite comfortable, despite the fact that he knew it must be below negative forty-five degrees Celsius. His enchanted bubble of magic kept him nice and warm, shimmering around him like a transparent layer of mist. Just one of many tricks he had learned recently.

Draco Malfoy was not taking this quest lightly.

Once the sole heir to the Malfoy family had moved his gold to a far less prestigious vault and exchanged some of it for muggle currency (the horror), he had disappeared to London for a time. Draco had rented himself a nice muggle room (the horror) in a muggle hotel (the utter, unimaginable horror), where no one from the wizarding world could possibly track him to.

For days, he had done nothing but research, nothing but prepare.

_The Master of Death._

_You asshole,_ Draco thought sourly as he trekked through the vibrant, wintry land. _I’ll find you, you asshole._

Draco had lists of locations he planned on going to, all of which were somehow connected with death. Places that were rumored to be passageways to the underworld, caves and islands that were supposedly portals to other realms. If the Master of Death were to be found somewhere, Draco mused, he should find him in one of those places, surely?

Obviously.

…Maybe.

Draco not only researched muggle legends and folktales of the afterlife and death, but everything else, too. Defensive magic. Healing spells. He’d studied cloaks, wands, and magical stones. He’d decided to take a leaf out of Granger’s book and enchant one of his bags to be massive on the interior, so that he might carry with him any supplies he would need. Nothing so foul as her ugly, beaded purse, of course, but a handsome satchel that he slung over one shoulder. Dragon’s hide, black, fire and water-proof, practically indestructible. The finest money could buy. He had it filled with books of every sort, a myriad of potions in unbreakable vials, the giant, luxurious tent his family had used during the Quidditch cup, _a Firebolt_ …   

Draco Malfoy was not taking this quest lightly.

The South Pole, the very first place he’d come to, was not actually on his long list of locations to explore. Draco continued on in the empty plane of white with his hands in his pocket. It wasn’t a logical place to investigate. There was no possible way that _he_ would ever want to set foot here, in this place where he’d been held captive for an entire year, asleep and unaware.

Perhaps it was only because this seemed the place that such a journey _should_ begin. This white, white world.

Draco paused, narrowing his eyes as he noticed something in the distance. Something small and dark. It stood out against the endless lightness like a blot of ink, marring the otherwise pristine landscape.

He didn’t think. He headed that way.

By the time that Draco was close enough to see it properly, he was beyond astounded. It was a _plant._ Something was _growing_ here.

 _Here!_ In the middle of this Antarctic tundra, in the midst of nothing but _ice!_

Draco rushed over and knelt down next to the impossible sapling, running his fingers across the thin, delicate leaves. They looked familiar, somehow…

The memory struck him like a bolt of lightning. He recognized these leaves, even in this young, barely sprouted form. This was the same species which grew in the front yard of his manor, the infant version of the tree which he had once flung himself from as a child, breaking his leg in an unsuccessful attempt to make his magic jump to life, when he feared he had no magic at all…

This was a _yew_ tree.

Draco quickly flung his bag around, opening it and reaching into its endless depths. He was met at once with the echoing sound of something collapsing. “Damn,” he muttered. “That’ll be the books…”

Which was especially irritating, considering that a specific book was exactly what he had been going for. Draco pulled his wand from his pocket, scowling. “ _Accio… accio Olivander’s book_ ,” he muttered, unable to recall the title of it, despite the fact that he had read it multiple times in the last week alone.

Instantly, a tome flew into his hands. Draco opened it and flipped to the section on Wand Woods. Because just now, seeing this sapling had stirred some vague recollection in his mind...

_Yew: Yew wands are among the rarer kinds, and their ideal matches are likewise unusual, and occasionally notorious. The wand of yew is reputed to endow its possessor with the power of life and death, which might, of course, be said of all wands; and yet yew retains a particularly dark and fearsome reputation in the spheres of duelling and all curses. However, it is untrue to say (as those unlearned in wandlore often do) that those who use yew wands are more likely to be attracted to the Dark Arts than another. The witch or wizard best suited to a yew wand might equally prove a fierce protector of others. Wands hewn from these most long-lived trees have been found in the possession of heroes quite as often as of villains. Where wizards have been buried with wands of yew, the wand generally sprouts into a tree guarding the dead owner’s grave. What is certain, in my experience, is that the yew wand never chooses either a mediocre or a timid owner._

The book fell slowly from Draco’s hands. He looked back at the sapling and gaped, backing away from the tree like it had just taken on the characteristics of the wizard it had once belonged to.

_Voldemort._

Even thinking the name made Draco shiver violently, though he was untouched by the coldness of the arctic air. The Dark Lord’s wand had been _yew_ , it must have been…and he had dropped it here, and…and left it… But this wasn’t his grave, his body was not here…

A cacophony of crippling emotions stormed Draco’s mind. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to rip the infant sapling up by it roots and set fire to it or care for it like the miracle of rebirth in this world of white that it was.  

In the end, he did nothing.

Draco picked up his book and pocketed his wand, turning away. He didn’t burn the yew, nor did he touch it again.

He just walked.  

Draco was unable to decipher his emotions. He couldn’t fathom how a yew tree had sprouted in this barren field of ice, no matter _whose_ wand it had once been... but he did know one thing with certainty.

That to search for Harry Potter was to search for Tom Riddle.

He nearly gave it all up, in that moment of clarity. Draco considered ending his journey before it had even begun. He walked aimlessly in the white, white world for a long time, his thoughts whirling in a way which never aligned themselves into something logical, but which did, eventually slow.

“You asshole.” Draco looked up towards the blank sky.

_To the mother fucking sky!_

“You asshole, I’ll find you…”

With a sharp _crack_ , Draco Malfoy disappeared.


	2. I Await a Guardian

_‘Severus Snape: War Hero, or Terrorist after all…on Fashion?’_

Draco laughed out loud when he read the headline. He found _The Daily Prophet_ at most international news stands—in Europe, at least. Currently, he was in Germany. Draco slipped the vendor a knut and took the issue, grinning as he devoured the story. He dearly needed a laugh.

There was nothing, after all, that Draco liked better than a good scandal and a healthy dose of drama. If that scandal concerned Snape, then all the better.

The photograph next to the article was easily the best part. Poor Snape, now famous, was constantly on the run from nagging reporters and vicious media. So were Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, but Severus Snape had it the worst. Double agent infamy, and all that.

Skeeter had wanted to write a book about him, shortly after the war was over and _Victory Day_ was declared. Snape had refused on all accounts.

And thus, a new sort of war had begun.

Rita Skeeter was, evidently, making it her personal mission to make Severus Snape’s life a living hell. And maybe, Draco mused, they should have had _Skeeter_ being the one to look for the Boy Who Lived when he first went missing, because the reporter seemingly had an uncanny ability to locate Snape, no matter where in the world he tried to run from her.

Draco held the magnificent results of one of her findings in his hands. She’d tracked him down to a magical shopping district in France. And while Draco thought it very unlikely that he was actually shopping for women’s undergarments, the picture made it look like that  _could_ be possible (Snape just happened to be walking past a well-known witch’s lingerie shop in Paris when the photo was taken), and it did make for very amusing reading. By the time Draco had finished the article, he was in a decisively better mood.

Draco folded the _Prophet_ up and stowed it in his bag. A delightful read, but he had other things he needed to focus on.

He’d wasted on entire week in Asia. In Fengdu, China, to be precise, where the ‘City of Ghosts’ was. It had probably just appealed to his literary senses (House of Ghosts was still a damn good title, in his opinion), but that location had been at the very top of his list of places to investigate.

No longer. ‘City of Ghosts’ had been crossed off with a very angry, violent mark after he’d spent days and days traveling on _cruise boats_ , in _motor vehicles_ , and _walking on foot_ , dealing with muggles every step of the way. The site was just a goddamn tourist attraction and nothing more (though he did, admittedly, find some of the Buddhist Shrines a bit fascinating).

Draco decided that he would stay away from Asia for a bit. He was feeling irrationally hostile towards the entire continent.

Nicaragua was next on his list.

The Masaya volcano, located just twenty kilometers from Nicaragua’s capital, was once believed by the Spanish muggles who arrived in the 16th century to be an entrance to hell. No one believed that today, of course, and Draco wasn’t exactly hopeful. But he decided that he would go and have a look anyway, especially after he read about the earlier myths which surrounded the site.

The natives had once believed that the volcano was a God, and that a sorceress lived within the fiery pit.

Draco was intrigued, to say the least.

* * *

 

_Nothing._

Draco was fuming nearly as much as the sulfuric geyser. His artfully cast spells kept him physically unscathed, but his mind was burning with torrid, angry thoughts.

Well, what had he expected, really? To find a phoenix, a baby, and a Master of Death?

Stupidly, yes. Draco had invented some sort of grand vision in his mind if what he might come across here. Probably something about it being a volcano, all fire, brimstone, and ashes.

“Stupid,” he muttered to himself, kicking a rock out of spite and immediately regretting it. It hurt. “Stupid,” he repeated, now hobbling back down the path he had taken to get there.

Feeling altogether too bitter to move on to the next location yet, Draco decided to visit Managua. He was in the vicinity, after all, and he’d never been to the capital of this country.

That, and he sorely needed a drink.

* * *

 

Draco found himself a nice, empty, hole-in-the-wall bar on the outskirts of town.

He hardly spoke any Spanish at all, but he’d at least had the foresight to look up a few key words and phrases before entering into a muggle pub. Hoping he wasn’t too far off, he sat at the bar and said, only a bit hesitantly, “Puedo tomar una bebida? No me importa lo que sea.”

The bartender, an old man with a thick mustache, cocked his head to one side, looking bemused. Draco mentally cursed himself for not changing his appearance earlier. The man was staring at his white-blonde hair with a bit too much scrutiny for his liking. “You don’t care what you drink?” he asked in a gruff voice with hardly any accent at all.

Draco let out an obvious sigh of relief. “You speak English,” he said. The man nodded. “Excellent. And no, I don’t care. Whatever drink is popular here, I guess. So long as it has a healthy amount of alcohol in it.”   

The bartender paused for a moment before turning his back to him. Once he began pouring different liquids and ice into a tumbler, Draco discreetly opened up his bag. Muggle money, where had he put it? He quickly dove his arm into the magically enlarged space, searching for the wallet that he had stuffed with all of those pieces of paper. Muggle money. What a joke.

He found it just as the bartender finished making whatever drink it was that he’d decided on. Draco eyed it distastefully, regretting his decision to let him choose. It was bright orange and looked entirely too fruity for his tastes.

“El macua!” the man said proudly, garnishing it with an orange slice and sliding it towards Draco. “Very popular, especially with the tourists.”

“That obvious that I’m a tourist, then?” Draco responded drily. He didn’t wait for an answer. “How much do I owe you?” He dug through his wallet, knowing that he had some of the stupid bills that this stupid place accepted. Cordobas, or something. He flipped past the American money, which was garish and green—

“I’ll accept dollars,” the man said. Draco looked up to see him eyeing his wallet greedily.

Dollars. The garish, green bills. “All right, then. How much for that…thing you made me?”

"...Twenty dollars,” the bartender said slowly.

Draco wasn’t sure if that was a lot for a drink in the muggle world, let alone Nicaragua, but he just shrugged. It was all just paper to him. “Here,” he said, handing him a bill that, conveniently enough, had a large number twenty on it. The man snatched it up at once.

Draco picked up the girly looking beverage and frowned. _Stupid_ , he thought again. He tentatively took a sip, feeling that he might as well—and his eyes brows instantly shot up when he tasted it.

“Wow,” he murmured, looking at the bright orange liquid in a whole new light. 

“You like it?” the bartender asked, expectant.

“Shockingly enough, I do,” Draco murmured, taking another drink. It was sweet, but also tart. Who would have thought that a muggle drink could be so good?

And _strong_ , too. He could definitely taste the alcohol. “What’s in this?”

“Rum. Flor de Caña.”

“Flor de Caña,” Draco repeated thoughtfully. “Not bad.”

The bartender furrowed his brows, looking at Draco’s hair, clothes, and dragon-hide bag with curious eyes. “Why are you in Managua, if you don’t mind my asking?”

Draco shrugged. Then, thinking that he might as well have some fun—and knowing that he would never see this man again—decided to try something absolutely insane, and be honest. “I was visiting the Masaya volcano earlier to see if it was possibly the entrance into hell.”

The man stared. Draco took another long sip of his macua.

“Well… Is that what you were hoping it would be?”

Draco almost chocked on his drink. “Excuse me?” he said in surprise, having not expected the man to try and continue the conversation.

“Were you hoping to find the entrance to hell, when you went? Or just a volcano?”

Draco pursed his lips. “…You know, I’m not really sure,” he admitted. “Maybe not the entrance to hell, necessarily, but I was definitely hoping for something more than just a volcano. I’m sort of… looking for someone.” He laughed, shaking his head dubiously. “Listen to me, trying to explain this to a m—to you!”

But the muggle man did not look amused at all. His lined face was very serious indeed when he spoke next. “What exactly are you trying to find, sir?”

“I’m trying to find something that connects this world and the next,” Draco answered honestly. “I’m trying to find Death.”

The bartender leaned forward on his elbows. “Then you’re looking in the wrong direction, going to volcanoes. Death doesn’t exist in fire. Fire is life. _Death_ is in the _darkness_.” Draco’s jaw dropped, completely blown away that this muggle seemed like he might actually know something. He listened with rapt attention. “There are many caves surrounding that volcano. I take it you have not heard the legend of the Cavern of Coldness?”

Draco downed the rest of his drink. “I have not,” he responded, grinning. The man smiled back and took his empty glass.

“Make me another one of those, and tell me all about it.”

* * *

 

Two hours later, and Draco could certainly see why the muggles would think this was a cursed cave.

It rested about ten kilometers south of the volcano’s mouth, and though there were many caves in the area, Draco knew at once that he’d found the right one. It was black, darker than what seemed natural, and the entrance went straight down… just like the muggle had described.

It was really more of a chasm than a cave, Draco thought. A giant hole in the earth that descended right into a bottomless pit. And, rather that have an air of sulfur about it, this cave emitted a sort of…coolness.

The Cavern of Coldness seemed a fitting name.

Draco’s fingers curled around the broom he held in one hand and his wand in the other. Part of him had a very bad feeling about this. His Slytherin survival instincts were screaming at him to turn around and leave, but he couldn’t. Draco mounted the Firebolt, stubbornly determined.

Determined to give this broom back to him in person and buy his own. Determined to find _him_.

Determined to erase the regret of his last words to Harry Potter being, ‘don’t screw it up.’

“ _Lumos_ ,” he muttered, and a light was born.

Draco descended into the darkness.

* * *

 

The coldness increased the further he went down. And he went down, and down, and down.

The cave was endless! Further he went, and with every passing second his anxiety rose. _Turn back, turn back!_ his subconscious demanded.

He didn’t.

By the time Draco finally landed on the cave’s floor, the coldness had increased exponentially. He could see his breath in the illuminated wand light. He shivered, stowing his broom in his bag and pulling his jacket more tightly around him.

There was something horribly… _familiar_ about this frigidity.

Maybe the familiarity should have been a warning sign, but it wasn’t. Draco felt a tiny spark of hope in his chest, recalling how it had felt when Harry was standing in front of him, invisible and in front of the veil. Was that him? Was this the aura of the Master of Death, unconscious, perhaps, dormant in this Cavern of Coldness?

The thought made his hopes soar. His wand light brightened.

And that was when everything went to hell.

The first dementor came out of the shadows, seemingly materializing from the darkness in the cave’s crevices.

Draco’s heart skipped a beat. For one fractional moment he just stood there, too shocked to do anything else. But then the creature moved, gliding towards him in a graceful and inhuman way, and life-saving adrenaline exploded in Draco’s veins.

He turned and ran, cursing the fact that he had just put the Firebolt away, cursing his own stupidity for not knowing that the coldness and the anxiety he’d been feeling were telltale signs of dementors, cursing that muggle man for sending him here.

Not that muggles could know that the cave was as cold as it was because of dementors… could they? Could muggles see these creatures? Draco doubted it, but even if they could, it didn’t matter. If any muggle had ever ventured to the bottom of this cavern, they certainly never got out. A dementor would swallow a muggle’s soul up without hesitation.

Just like it would swallow his.

Unless he could get away or conjure a patronus, but Draco wasn’t sure that he could. He never had before, not fully, not properly. He could feel the dementor gaining, closing in on its unexpected victim into its lair. Draco lifted his wand, knowing that he had no other option and turning to face it, when—

Oh, God.

There were _more_ of them.

Dementors were pouring out of the cracks in the stones like liquid shadows, their cloaks slowly forming in what may have been considered a beautiful fashion, if it weren’t so terrifying. They were bleeding together, swirling around him on all sides, and—

This wasn’t just a lair, this was a _breeding ground_. The realization hit Draco like a punch to the stomach. His knees nearly bucked under the weight of horror.

Someone was crying. Draco heard her muffled cries as though from a distance, as though they were an echoing memory…

 _No, no,_ he thought torridly. _Happy thoughts, think happy thoughts, Draco_. He scrambled desperately for a pleasant recollection, and came up with the moment he was sorted—how happy he had been when the hat had yelled ‘Slytherin!’ almost at once, how proud he had been—how he couldn’t wait to write his parents and tell them—

 _“Expecto patronum!”_ he shouted, brandishing his glowing wand.

A thin veil of silver came forth, spilling out onto the darkness in a sheet of light. The dementors nearest to him receded out of its reach. They hovered outside of the mist, cautious but not deterred.

They were waiting. 

Draco swallowed thickly, trying with all of his might to concentrate on that happy memory, but…but the crying was getting louder, and—

“No…”

It was his mother… She was crying, and his father was shouting…

_‘If he’s a squib, then he’s no son of mine!’_

The thin veil of silver vanished, as did his wand light.

Draco was swallowed by darkness and misery, and the next memory struck him powerfully enough that he saw it, reliving the nightmare…

Draco, just a child, standing precariously in the branches of a yew tree. He was so high up, very high… But if he jumped, then his magic would save him, and his father wouldn’t hate him, and he wouldn’t leave them…

But when he jumped, his magic did not save him. He once more experienced the very visceral sensation of his leg breaking beneath him, of bone cracking and fire under his skin.

The memory dissipated. Draco fell to the cave floor, clutching at his leg which stung with the ghost of pain which was no longer there. The coldness was unbearable, suffocating. Though he could see nothing at all in the darkness, Draco could feel the dementors closing in.

He was going to die here.

Draco was about to be kissed, he was going to lose his soul—he would be _worse_ than dead—

_‘…I don’t believe a single one of those.’_

The unexpected memory of Harry’s voice in his mind hit Draco like an electric current.

He could hear him so clearly, could remember it so perfectly. He and Harry, drinking and playing that stupid game. Harry, laughing and calling him on his bluffs.

Harry, smiling and full of life, and Draco, feeling so secretly pleased that he had been able to make Harry forget about his pain, if only for a few hours.

Draco clung to that memory and tried again, pushing himself to his feet and bellowing into the cavernous air, _“Expecto Patronum!”_

The spell was so powerful that it transcended silver, exploding in a burst of vibrant, glorious white. It was _definitely_ corporal, and Draco laughed a bit deliriously when the large creature roared to life and lit up the entire cavern. It sped towards the dementors in such a speeding flash that he did not, at first, see what it was—but it definitely _wasn’t_ a ferret.

The dementors didn’t hover, this time. They all flew from the brilliant animal made of light, which was something four legged and equestrian, fleeing up and away in a sheet of swirling blackness. They fled, taking their horrible iciness and unwanted misery with them.

It wasn’t until after they had dispersed that Draco was finally able to get a good look at his patronus. He held his breath when the creature turned, and for a frozen moment he thought he may have produced a bloody unicorn—

But…no.

The stag approached him with a bit of a prance in its step, a spirited cantor. Draco stared, wide-eyed and too stunned to properly feel anything other than awe.

It didn’t come too close, though. The glowing stag hovered out of his reach, tilting its antlered head to one side and lifting one of its front legs. It was a playful gesture, one that said:

_Catch me if you can._

The patronus vanished.

Draco fell to his knees in the darkness and cried.


	3. Ghosts and Ghosts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My thoughts on Draco's Patronus:
> 
> In my mind, it is not necessarily a romantic inclination that Draco feels towards Harry, not entirely. Theirs was one of those confusing relationships that's hard to describe—for me as an author and for Draco as a character to himself. A friendship that maybe could have been something more, but the timing and the circumstances were wrong, and the opportunity never arose.
> 
> In this story, Draco realizes that it could have gone that way with harry but probably wouldn't have. More than anything, he thought of his relationship with Harry as something brotherly and was fiercely protective of it.
> 
> Having a patronus that looks like someone else's isn't necessarily romantic love, though that was the case for Snape and Tonks. Harry's own stag was based on his father, after all.

 

 

 

' _Severus Snape and Hermione Granger: The Shocking Truth of Their Torrid Romance'._

Draco snorted as he unfolded the _Prophet_ , grinning merrily. _This_ , he thought as he took a sip of his cappuccino, _ought to be good_.

The sub-headline only confirmed this thought.

' _The No-Longer Secret Love Affair That May have Fueled the Fire of the Resistance. Rita Skeeter reports.'_

Draco devoured the article with lightning speed.

'… _Post-war, the closeness of ex-Professor Severus Snape and his student from years prior, Hermione Granger, was noted by many, and was seen as somewhat odd._

' _She was smart, yes, but a Gryffidnor,' remarks Pansy Parkisnon, a perceptive and pretty Slytherin girl who was in Granger's same year at Hogwarts. 'Professor Snape definitely didn't show any sort of favoritism then, so it was shock to see them out in the public eye together so often once the war ended.'_

_This reporter remembers well the tenacity that is Hermione Jean Granger, as well as her seemingly insatiable need to date boys of high esteem. Evidently, boys were no longer enough to satisfy the influential witch she has become, and she has moved on to_ men.

' _Well, he_ did _seem to be rather fond of her,' says Luna Lovegood, a Ravenclaw student who has always been an advocate of the truth, and who was present at Hogwarts while our heroic team of vigilantes was hidden within the walls of Hogwarts. 'In a way that I am relatively certain was genuine and extraordinarily out of character, for him. I've never seen Professor Snape at a loss for words, before, but he was speechless when Ron accused him of fancying her. It was very dramatic.'_

_Dramatic, indeed. It would seem that the illustrious witch has once more caused_ several _of the unfortunate wizards in her company to carelessly surrender their hearts without regard._

_Severus Snape remains more elusive than ever before. But fear not, for no matter where he runs, I can assure you that this reporter will never give up on the quest for the answers that the wizarding world so deserves. My quill acts like a compass, and Severus Snape cannot hide from the truth forever._

_When I attempted to question Miss Granger on the matter, however, I was met with an extremely violent response. The enraged witch spat false accusations at me (I am a very legal and registered Animagus, and my reporting has never once been fraudulent) and even threatened my life. But nothing stops the persistence of Rita Skeeter, and so I carried on, asking relentlessly the question which everyone in the wizarding community is_ dying _to know the answer to:_

' _Are you, Hermione Granger, in a romantic relationship with Severus Snape?'_

_The final response I received before she apparated away from the confrontation of reality was a slew of curses which bordered on Unforgiveable. Fortunately, my line of work has made me quite adept at dodging. And while I may not have received a verbal confirmation to that question, dear readers, you can rest assured that I have the answer._

_For if a poorly aimed blood-boiling curse, turning the color of a fresh-cut rose, and the lack of an outright denial doesn't scream secretive, passionate love…then I don't know what does.'_

Draco chortled and folded the paper up again. He could only imagine what sort of tension this was creating between Granger, Snape, Weasley, and—well, the rest of the Weasley's. What a horrible, emotional storm. What a dramatic spectacle. The thought made Draco sigh in contentment.

Well, it was a pleasant thought, but he once more needed to be moving on to more important things.

Draco had just spent a fortnight in Greece, and had failed to make any progress whatsoever. Acheron was the name of the river which he went to investigate, a real river which existed both in classical mythology as well as Northwest Greece. In Homer's Odyssey (an admittedly fascinating read, which had Draco wondering where in the world muggles came up with all of this nonsense), Circe directed Odysseus to the underworld on his quest, telling him that he had to find the point where the Acheron river and the Pyriphlegethon met, as well as the Styx. According to that story, the ferryman Charon transported the newly dead across the river and into the afterlife.

This was a belief that was told in another story, too. In Dante's poem, _Inferno_ , the souls of the 'Uncommitted'—that is to say, people who lived their lives never having chosen to be good or evil—stayed forever on the banks of Acheron, not condemned to the fiery pits of hell, but still punished for all of eternity for their indecisiveness.

Draco had expected to find _something_ in Greece, but no. The only truths that Draco revealed was that the Acheron river was long, lovely, and lacking anything at all which related to Death or the Afterlife.

Draco sighed, fishing some muggle money out of his pocket. Greece was beautiful, and he had taken a few says to simply take in the sights while he was there. He was surprised on a daily basis when he would come across old, muggle structures, wondering how on earth people from so long ago could have ever built something so marvelous _without_ magic.

But Draco was feeling a bit homesick. He had been on his own for months, now, traveling across eight countries with nothing so far to show for it.

It wasn't an easy life, being a magical nomad. Not for his inability to take care of himself—he had plenty of money and his spell-casting was decent—but for sheer lack of company. He was feeling lonely. Draco was pining for familiarity.

It didn't help that it was Christmas.

Draco paid for his coffee, pushing aside all thoughts of what his friends and family must be doing. He couldn't go back home.

But there was somewhere else he could go.

* * *

Breaking into Hogwarts was not as difficult as Draco would have thought.

Of course, he knew the castle extremely well. He'd scoured the place endlessly in his last year of attendance, trying to figure out a way to get a group of murderous Death Eaters within its walls. Once he'd apparated outside on the snow-covered grounds, he'd snuck in through a secret tunnel he'd discovered which went through the Shrieking Shack.

He remembered the day that he'd crawled out of that tunnel, discovering that the Whomping Willow would stop moving if you just touched this little knot. He wondered why any of it was there, what someone must have been hiding in that shack at some point.

Just one more mystery of Hogwarts that he would have to figure out.

Draco walked along the empty corridors, as quiet and invisible as a phantom. He'd disillusioned himself and cast a silencing charm around his body. It was the dead of night, and the castle was probably almost completely empty—it was during the holiday, after all—but he was being cautious.

It baffled him, actually, that classes had carried on again on the first of September. The castle had been repaired, the class schedules changed, new staff appointed and the Sorting recommenced—like it didn't even _matter_ that—

Draco shook his head, forcing the thought away. He was here for a reason.

He dropped his disillusionment charm and entered into the bathroom, whispering _'lumos'_ as he did.

"Myrtle…?"

She floated out of one of the stalls. Her transparent face broke out into a giant grin.

" _Draco!"_

Draco returned her smile, feeling ridiculously happy to see her again. He didn't even mind when she glided over to him, wrapping her non-existent arms around him and making him feel cold, despite the fact that he used to yell at her when she'd do that.

"What are you _doing_ here?" she asked, backing away and putting her hands on her hips. "It's Christmas! And past midnight! Shouldn't you be at home with your family?"

Draco ignored the massive tidal wave of guilt that threatened to overwhelm him. "Yeah, well. I thought I'd rather be here."

She beamed. Draco would never admit to another living soul how much the sight warmed his heart.

"How have you been?" she asked, her expression softening with concern. She hovered over the sink and crossed her legs, like she was actually sitting on the porcelain surface.

"Perfectly awful," Draco answered, leaning against the wall.

She nodded understandably. "I hear about you in the castle, you know," she said, and Draco raised a brow in surprise. "You and the others. You're so popular, even when you're not here anymore."

"Yeah, well. I suppose being a war hero has some repercussions," he muttered.

She laughed. Draco watched the way she hovered there, the way her chest moved with breath she wasn't using. He looked at her and, rather than feel happy at the sound of her laughter, was filled with a sense of deepest sadness.

"Say… Myrtle," he murmured, cautious. "Do you… Do you remember it? You know… When you died?"

She blinked in surprise at the question. "Yes, I thought I told you? I saw these eyes, and—"

"No, not that. Not those last moments when you were still alive. I mean…afterwards."

She stared at him. Her expression became strangely blank. "I mean, you didn't just become a ghost immediately afterwards, right? Otherwise you would have been right here, and seen what had really happened to you… There was something else that happened, before you became a ghost, right? What was it? Do you remember…?"

Myrtle was silent. She turned and stared at herself in the mirror, her face completely emotionless.

She stayed like that for long time. So long, in fact, that Draco feared that she wasn't going to answer, and might just float away, straight through the wall and out of sight.

"…I remember."

She looked at him with wide, empty eyes.

"What happened?" Draco asked again, unable not to. "What was it like…?"

"Well… I imagine it's different for everyone. Death." Myrtle's voice was soft and gentle. Draco listened with rapt attention. "For me, it was the tube."

"The… Death was a tube?"

"No, _the_ tube. You know. The muggle transportation system. In London. You've never heard of the tube?" Myrtle smirked when Draco shook his head, confused. "You really don't know _anything_ about muggle life, do you, my ignorant dragon?"

Draco scowled. "I find I'm learning more and more all the time," he admitted sourly. "Okay, then. Explain this _tube_ to me."

"It's a system of underground trains," she explained. "They run on set tracks all over the city. To get on you go down these stairs on the street, and then you just hop on the train when it stops. My dad worked in London, and we lived in the suburbs. When I was little, it was my favorite thing. The tube. I remember all these times when it was just my dad and I, and we'd hear the train coming, so we'd run, trying to catch it."

She smiled wistfully. "What would happen if you'd miss it, though?" Draco asked.

"Oh, they ran really frequently. So if you missed one, it wasn't a big deal, usually. You'd just wait a few minutes for the next one. It was just something my dad and I always did. Run to catch the train that was coming. My mum hated doing that, so when we were all together, we would just walk and wait."

She smiled again, in a nostalgic, serene way. "Oh," Draco said, unable to think of anything else. He could see in her expression that she was reliving it now, running with her dad, taking the train with her mum…

"So when I died, I saw the tube," she continued. "I was running, at first. I remember that. But no one was with me, I was completely alone. I heard the train coming, so I sprinted without thinking. And there was the train.

…I could have made it. I could have gotten on that first one…but I hesitated. The doors opened, and there was nothing but white inside. A brilliant, bright light. It scared me. I didn't get on."

She paused, twirling a transparent strand of hair around one finger. "But I thought, well, that's okay. Another one will come. So I sat on a bench and waited. And it did. Another train arrived just a few moments later, opening up its doors to that same bright, whiteness. I knew what it was, then. It really sunk in that I was dead and that this was beyond… And then I remembered exactly what had happened to me. I remembered that I had been in the bathroom, sad and alone because Olive Hornby been making fun of me, again. I remembered that I had been crying, and I started crying then, too. I didn't get on the train. It left."

Draco was surprised that she wasn't crying now. But her eyes, which were so often misty with tears, were perfectly dry. "I just sat there and cried. Trains kept coming, and I kept not getting on, until, eventually… they didn't. The trains stopped coming. I cried myself to sleep."

Draco stared, perplexed. "You _fell asleep?"_

"Yes," she said, nodding. "I fell asleep on the bench, and when I woke up, I was hovering over my grave. You can't imagine what that's like. Opening your eyes to your own name on marble in a graveyard."

Draco's blood ran cold. He could never say it to her, but yes, he _could_ imagine that, because he had experienced it.

"When I first saw I was a ghost, I screamed. I screamed so loudly, but no one heard me, even though there were lots of people around. I was buried in a muggle graveyard. And muggles… Muggles can't see ghosts the way witches and wizards can."

She peered up at him from beneath her glasses, giving him the saddest smile that Draco had ever seen. He swallowed thickly, knowing all too well what she was hinting at.

Myrtle had become a ghost, eternally doomed to remain on Earth as a spirit…and her parents would never know.

"It's for the best, I think," she murmured. "I… I followed them around, for a while. Trying to reach them, somehow. I haunted my parents. Sometimes, I think they could sort of feel me. I mourned with them. I cried next to my dad, I would try and hug my mum. I may have haunted them forever if… Well." She shook her head, casting aside that thought. "Anyway. I stopped following them and started haunting Olive Hornby, instead."

"That bitch," Draco added. Myrtle smirked.

"That bitch," she agreed.

They laughed. Draco wasn't sure what was wrong with him, to be able to have such a despairing conversation with a ghost and still find a way to laugh with her about it.

Like Death was some kind of a joke.

"…I suppose I shouldn't stay here too long," Draco eventually said. "It would probably be frowned upon, hanging around the castle like this…"

"You're probably right." Myrtle swooped in, giving him another chilly hug. "You'll have to come back some other time, when you're not sneaking around at night."

"I will," he promised. "I just… You know. Wanted to wish you a happy Christmas."

She smiled again, and, ah, there they were. Those inevitable tears. Myrtle wiped them away, sniffling. "Happy Christmas, Draco. Now go back home to your family before they miss you."

Draco nodded, though he had absolutely no intention of going home, nor was he about to tell her that he'd run away from his family months ago. He reached out and made as though to squeeze her hand before leaving, and though it passed right through her and she could feel nothing, she smiled.

Draco left the bathroom, but not the castle. There was one last thing he wanted to look at, first.

The Great Hall felt like a different place entirely when it was empty.

Draco walked between the long tables, running his fingers along the familiar, wooden surface. He remembered sitting there, eating countless meals and laughing with Crabbe, Goyle, Zabini, and Parkinson… He remembered when he sat _right there_ , flashing a button across the Hall that read 'Potter Stinks!' in bright, neon letters…

Draco stopped and looked up.

The enchanted ceiling was brilliant, scattered with stars and a few deep, navy clouds.

He frowned, examining the way that the walls transitioned seamlessly into a night sky. It was just a spell, just magic which made it look that way. It wasn't really an open window into the heavens.

So then how in the hell had Harry blasted apart the wards through it?

Draco stared pensively up at the hourglasses. He could envision it, even now, even though when he had first witnessed it he had been so far away.

'… _And I am the Chosen One.'_

Draco shivered at the recollection.

For a long time, he merely stood there in the empty hall, looking up at the stars like they might just explain it all to him. "Where are you?" he murmured under his breath.

And maybe he was losing his mind completely, because he swore to God, he could hear… was that _laughter?_ Draco narrowed his eyes, scouring the celestial sky. It _was_ laughter, soft and echoing—like it was _coming from the sky_ —

_The stars are laughing at me_ , Draco thought incredulously. He was just reaching into his bag, about to grab his Firebolt and fly up there, thinking he'd like to soar up into the actual clouds and tell the stars to go fuck themselves, when—

" _Draco Malfoy!"_

Draco turned on the spot at the sound, his heart in his throat. He barely dodged the disarming spell in time.

_How the hell had Snape found him here?_

Without thinking, Draco's hand closed around something in his bag. He yanked it out and threw it on the ground, amazed at his luck that he had happened to have his fingers on it in that moment.

The Hall filled with darkness.

"Draco Malfoy, what is _wrong_ with you?" Snape shouted angrily, whipping around. Draco laughed, quickly finding his Hand of Glory and lighting it up. Snape was looking murderous, blind and facing the wrong way.

Draco pressed his wand to his throat and spoke with a voice that sounded on the other side of the room. "What do _you_ want?"

Instantly, Draco was glad that he'd thrown his voice. Snape had cast another spell—a stunner, this time—and Draco was certain that, had he actually been standing there, he would have been hit in the chest. "Not even close!" he yelled cheerfully, taunting. Snape growled in frustration.

"Stop this nonsense at once, Draco," he spat, turning and looking in a different direction, now. "Just what do you think you are doing, traveling all over the place on your own, chasing after _muggle fairy tales?_ You are going to get yourself _killed_."

"What the hell do you care what I do?" Draco snapped back. "Merlin, have you been _following_ me, trying to track me down this whole time?"

"Of _course_ I've been trying to find you!" Snape roared. Draco wondered if there were any students in the castle and, if there were, if they would wake them up.

"And I thought you were just trying to get away from Skeeter," he sneered. "Why are you following me, then? Coming after my inheritance, hm?"

"Draco, don't be an idiot," Snape seethed in response. He lowered his voice, clearly trying to sound less hostile. "Whatever it is you think you're doing, you need to stop. Everyone is worried about you. Your parents are extremely concerned."

"I left a note," Draco said causally. Snape's fingers flexed around his wand.

"Yes. A _note_. I read it."

"Then you know exactly what it is I'm doing."

Snape threw another curse. It was actually distressingly close. Draco ducked and swerved, then threw his voice to another section of the Hall. "Missed."

"Draco, you are not going to find him!" Snape yelled, and though his tone was angry, his expression was horribly pitying. Like he had forgotten that Draco could see him in the darkness, even though he, personally, was currently blinded. "He—he's gone, and—"

"He is _not!_ I _know_ what I saw!" Draco yelled. "And he's going to be really pissed off when I find him, and he finds out that the only one who didn't give up on him was Draco _fucking_ Malfoy!"

Snape was quiet for a moment. He lowered his wand and took a deep breath. When he spoke again, his voice was calm and collected. "Draco, I know that you are hurting. I understand what you are going through. But—"

"Oh, _fuck you!"_ Draco snarled. Snape winced. "You don't have a clue what I'm going through! You didn't even _like_ him, what do you care? You're probably glad that he's—"

"Finish that sentence and you will regret it for the rest of your life!"

Snape's voice had become suddenly so livid that Draco fell silent. Snape composed himself before speaking once more. "I know what you are going through. Of course I cared for him. I was the one who went to rescue him, remember?"

"Yes, I remember," Draco sneered. "I remember that you went, and that—that Harry was just inexplicably unconscious, afterwards. I remember your vague and suspicious story that he was just mentally damaged and needed to recover." Draco felt rage bubbling his chest, and was sorely tempted to hit Snape with some dark and painful curse from behind. "I remember that you're a lying, secretive, manipulative piece of shit, always keeping information to yourself so that the rest of us are left wondering just what actually happened!"

"Is that what you think?" Snape's voice was cold, detached. "You think I have withheld information from you at this point because I am hiding something from you? That I'm not telling you all of the details for some underhanded purpose?"

Draco didn't say anything, only listened. Snape went on. "…I haven't told you precisely what happened for your own sake. So that you wouldn't have to live with the horror of it, as I do. But allow me to share with you the _burden_ of the _truth_."

He turned, and he was almost looking directly at Draco when he spoke. "When I got there, he was—he was _broken_." Snape's voice cracked. Draco had never heard Snape sound so crushed. "He was ripped apart. There was blood everywhere, all over the sheets and floor…"

Draco's heart froze in his chest. Snape was speaking so quietly now that it was practically a whisper. "He was bleeding, bruised…naked. And that wasn't even the worst of it. I saw it, in his eyes. What he was thinking… He was thinking that he _loved_ him."

"…Wh…what?" Draco gasped. Snape closed his eyes and bowed his head, looking so painfully defeated. "What are you…what do you mean, loved him? Loved… _him?"_

"Yes."

"…He really was mentally damaged?" Draco gaped. "What, had he been given a love potion or—"

"No. No, he… It was an honest thought. He really, truly thought he loved him."

Draco was quiet for a long time, shocked that Snape was actually telling him this, shocked by all of it. "…So what if he did, then?"

Snape looked up in the wrong direction. "What if he _did_ love him?" Draco said. "What if he wasn't messed up, what if it was legitimate?"

Rage started mounting in Draco's chest as he put it all together. "Oh, Merlin. He _did_. He _did_ love him, for whatever fucked up reason, and—and you _knew_ it, and—and you did it anyway, and so when he was sentenced to death, that's why he—that's why Harry—"

Draco almost fell, his knees had become so weak. "It _is_ your fault," he breathed. " _You_ killed him."

"I did what needed to be done!" Snape roared, furious again.

"You could have not done it!" Draco argued. "You could have let him go! If Harry wanted to be with—"

"Are you _mad?_ " Snape turned the wrong way again, his face as white as the December snow. "Do you even hear yourself? Let him be with the Dark Lord? Thatbwas _Voldemort_ , Draco, that was a murderous, dangerous, violent man who—"

"I know who he was, thanks," Draco sneered, though he was shaken when Snape said his name. "But it wasn't up to _you_ , it was his decision—Harry wasn't your personal responsibility, you weren't his parent—"

" _I was as good as!"_ Draco jumped, startled at the adamant declaration. "I was a good as a parent to him! I was the only one who ever had his best interests at heart! Even when Dumbledore would have been willing to sacrifice him—to throw his life away for _the greater good_ —I wanted to save him!" Snape paused, and Draco swore his eyes were swimming with tears.

"I wanted to save him!"

A real, horrible sob came choking out of Snape's throat. Draco was too stunned to respond.

"…But I failed, and he is gone," he continued quietly. "He is dead, Draco. Stop chasing after his ghost."

"No."

Snape's expression was livid again in an instant. "Draco, you will _listen_ to me."

"No, I really won't," Draco responded loftily. He started edging his way out of the hall. "I'm off to Argentina next, I think. Or maybe Brazil. Wherever the wind takes me. Tell my parents I say hello, and that I am doing just fine, thanks—"

Snape reached his limit. He began firing off spells at random, with lightning speed and in every direction.

Draco panicked and backed away, throwing up a shielding charm, but Snape strategically moved so that he was blocking the quickest way out. Draco was just fearing that he may be caught, that his quest was over, when a high, blood-curdling scream nearly gave him a heart attack.

" _He's over here!"_

Myrtle had found her way down to the Great Hall. She hovered over by the hourglasses, on the complete opposite side of where Snape currently was, firing hexes. She made eye contact with Draco and winked. Evidently, Peruvian Darkness Powder did not work on ghosts.

" _He's over here, hurry!"_

Snape ran blindly in the wrong direction. Draco blew Myrtle a kiss, quickly and quietly making his retreat, exiting through the main doors and escaping into the night.


	4. Visible, Invisible

Canada was vast, chilly, and strikingly beautiful.

Draco wandered through the deciduous forest, a warming charm keeping him comfortable as he roamed. It was dusk, and as night began to fall, Draco's perception became sharper.

Fireflies. He was looking for fireflies.

Also known by the people of the region as fen-follets, it was an old Canadian myth that fireflies were actually lost souls. That, after death, the spirits of the departed became trapped on earth, visible only as specks of light in the darkness. They allegedly lured other living beings astray with their brilliance, desperate and lonely, tricking people into joining them in purgatory for all of eternity.

Well, Draco was fairly certain that fireflies were just bugs, but he was intrigued enough to look into it. Keeping his wand unlit and in his pocket, Draco weaved warily through the trees. Fortunately, the sky was clear, and the bright, waxing moon and stars made it easy to see.

He found the first firefly as he entered into a small clearing. With the swiftness of a Seeker, Draco easily reached out and caught it, trapping it between his hands. He waited a moment before slowly opening his palms. The insect remained perfectly still as it rested on his fingers.

"Are you going to lead me astray, little guy?" he murmured. The firefly lit up once, twice. "Are you going to show me the way to some other realm, where my asshole friend might be?"

The firefly opened its wings and flew away. Draco followed at once.

One glowing insect soon became a few more, and by the time night had fully fallen, Draco found himself in a field full of tiny, glowing lights.

It was quite lovely, even the judgmental, young Malfoy heir could admit that. He smiled as the fireflies danced around him, going this way and that. Yet as he followed their movements, chasing after them in clusters, they did not seem to be leading him anywhere but in circles.

He hadn't expected anything more, but he felt a little disappointed, regardless. Draco sighed, deciding to pick one insect individually and follow it around for a bit more before giving up. The sun was starting to rise, and the fireflies would soon dissipate as well.

It lazily flew to the edge of the field, towards where Draco could see a lake. A large, still body of water that reflected the sky like a sheet of glass. He was just admiring the sight of it when his breath caught in his throat.

The firefly was forgotten in an instant.

There, on the other side of the, nearing the water's edge…was a horse.

Except, not really.

It was like nothing that Draco had ever seen before, this massive mare which was drinking from the lake. But rather than fur, it seemed to be covered in leather. And…and it had _wings_ ; giant, batlike wings that were folded against its sides. When Draco spotted it, it stopped drinking and lifted its dragon-like head.

White eyes.

There were no pupils whatsoever. Draco was caught in the blank white stare…of a…

"No," Draco breathed, backing away slowly. "No."

He turned on the spot and disapparated.

* * *

Draco walked aimlessly down a sidewalk in Montreal. The city was just coming to life people headed to work and school, their muggle cars speeding down the streets towards their normal lives. Draco had never envied a muggle before in his entire life, but he envied them all, now.

He felt like magic was taunting him.

Draco's body was sore and aching. He had stayed up all night chasing fireflies, but he was not tired at all. His troubled mind raced. How was it that he had seen a thestral? For there was nothing else that creature could have been; as abysmal of a teacher as that giant oaf was, Draco remembered _that_ class _particularly_ well. Invisible monsters tearing apart the flesh that was offered to them, splattering blood everywhere…

Draco recalled how they were described, physically, and that…that they did not become visible unless they had seen death.

But he hadn't. Draco refused to believe that.

_Harry had not died._

Draco hadn't seen _anyone_ die, ever… Had he?

Draco paused in his aimless march. The memory struck him suddenly, and he felt a simultaneous rush of both relief and guilt.

_Dobby._

Yes, he _had_ seen death. He had watched in Aberforth's home when his old house elf had died in the arms of Luna Lovegood…

Draco wasn't sure if he should laugh or cry. He hadn't ever been particularly fond of the elf, but the fact remained that Dobby had sacrificed himself for them, and witnessing his death had made him feel hollow inside.

The streets were becoming a bit more crowded. A woman who was walking very quickly nearly ran him over when he wasn't paying attention. Draco scowled as his bag fell from his shoulder. "Fucking muggle!" he snarled, his tired mind instantly making him crabby.

And he never would have thought that here, in Canada, that anyone would have even known what that word meant—least of all the non-magical people themselves.

He was therefore very surprised when the woman, as well as the large man walking next to her, froze. The woman turned, and Draco couldn't help but notice that she had an extraordinarily long neck. Her blue eyes were wide and distraught when she said, in an affronted voice, " _What_ did you just call me?"

Draco blinked in surprise. Had he stumbled upon another British wizard and a witch? "A muggle," he repeated, reaching down and grabbing his bag. "I called you a muggle. Do you know what that means?"

Both of their faces paled, like they very much knew what that meant. "You're one of those ruddy freaks, aren't you?" the man said.

_Oh,_ Draco thought, as the realization dawned on him. These weren't other magical people, these were just muggles who were in on the secret. His father had told him all about these particularly dangerous, non-magical scum. They must have a close muggle-born relative, or something.

"If by _ruddy freak_ you mean _wizard_ , then yes," Draco said coolly. They both jumped violently at the word 'wizard', making Draco smirk.

"Who are you?" the woman asked. She grabbed her husband's shoulder, her already huge eyes widening even more. "Did he send you, are you—are you _him?"_

The malevolent grin slid from Draco's face as he stared at her, utterly confused. "Am…am I who?"

" _You know who!"_

The woman was suddenly shrieking, causing people to turn and look around. Draco wasn't sure what he had done, but they were both shaking and backing away, looking terrified. "It is him! I can tell! He's followed us here, just like he said he would—get behind me, Petunia—"

The man reached into the inner pocket of his jacket. On pure instinct, Draco reached into his pocket as well, drawing his wand.

It all happened very quickly. The man whipped out a handgun, and the people who had been watching started screaming. Though his hands were shaking, the muggle pointed the gun straight at Draco, his formerly pale face now completely red.

"Stay the _fuck_ away from my family!"

Draco didn't even have time to utter a spell. Maybe if he had been adept at wordless incantations, he could have thrown up a shielding charm, but he wasn't. The sound of a gunshot having just been fired rang in his ears as he disapparated, right in the middle of a crowded city street full of muggles.

Unfortunately, Draco hadn't been thinking of his _destination_ , nor had he been thinking of it with _determination_ and _deliberation._ No, Draco had just been thinking, _I don't want to fucking die._

He was therefore not very surprised when he landed somewhere completely unintentional but rather recent in his wanderings.

With an icy cold splash, Draco fell right into the middle of a cold, vast lake.

He floundered for a few moments, coughing up water and kicking his legs to remain above the surface. Luckily, he was at least not too far from the shore. Draco swam to the edge of the lake (not such an easy task in robes and with a large bag) and dragged himself onto dry land.

Draco fell to his knees on the ground. He wiped the water from his face, visibly shaking and knowing that his trembling had nothing at all to do with the cold. He was extremely relieved that he had not splinched himself nor dropped his wand. He tried pointing it at himself, thinking to cast a drying spell, but he was far too shaken. He dropped his arms to his sides, breathing deeply.

He probably should have been concerned about having just vanished in the middle of public like that, but he wasn't. His father was very well-versed in what sorts of magic were the easiest and the most difficult to get caught for in the muggle world, and so Draco knew that apparation was one which caused a lot of problems for the Magical Law Enforcement. The Ministry officials could tell when and where a witch or wizard had disapparated from, but it was almost impossible to know where they had gone. There were probably workers from whatever government Magical Canada had now, griping as they wiped muggle memories and cleaned up his mess.

Draco didn't feel that guilty. That insane man had been about to _shoot_ him!

_Muggles!_

Scowling, Draco ran his hands through his wet hair and squeezed some of the water out of it. When he looked out across the water, he almost laughed.

There, in the exact same spot, the _exact_ same spot…was that damn thestral.

It was standing perfectly still, staring at him with those creepy, white eyes, like it had just been waiting for him to come back.

"Can I _help_ you?" Draco called, his voice raspy from having hacked up so much lake water. "Do you _want_ something from me?"

The thestral cocked its head to one side, but, naturally, didn't answer. It then turned and walked away, heading back towards the forest.

It wasn't until it had disappeared behind some trees that Draco suddenly realized something. Thestrals… Thestrals had excellent senses of directions, didn't they? And they were omens of death, so maybe… Maybe he could catch it, and tell it to take him there!

To the _Master of Death!_

Still feeling too shaky to dry his clothes and too nervous to apparate again, Draco scrambled to his feet and ran.

"Hey!" he called, like maybe yelling for the creature might actually work. "Hey! Thestral! Don't run off!"

But the thestral was now nowhere to be found.

"Of fucking course," Draco muttered, finally feeling capable of casting a quick _exaresco_ and drying himself off. "Of course a thestral would show up and stare at me when that's the last thing I want, but would run away when I'm actually looking for it, like it just became invisible again… Totally fucking disappeared…"

_Just like him_ , he thought with a heavy heart.

'… _you've just been looking in all the right places at all the wrong times.'_

Draco started when Harry's words echoed in his mind. He whipped around, searching in the trees, though he knew it was fruitless. He had imagined that voice.

Hadn't he?

"I'm gonna find you!" he yelled, though he no longer meant the elusive thestral. "You hear me? I'm going to find you! …You asshole!"

Draco waited to see if there would be a snarky response. There wasn't.

He huffed and disapparated, off to the next place.


	5. Portae Mortis

For the first time, Draco was on the verge of investigating something which was not based on a muggle legend…but a magical one.

It was not linked with death, necessarily, but the premise was certainly interesting. Draco had just spent a few days searching for the 'rainbow serpent' of Australia—a mythical creature that also had nothing to do with death, but which was allegedly responsible for the water of life in Australia's desert planes. Draco decided to go looking for it anyway, mostly because he found the idea of a technicolor snake that made it rain funny, and, well, he mused, maybe Harry would, too. The twat could even talk to it, if such a colorful serpent existed.

But it didn't, and so Draco decided to spend some leisure time in the Victoria region of Southern Australia. The weather was lovely, the sun was warm and welcoming, and he had been fortunate enough to happen upon a _wizarding_ pub, for once.

It was amazing, really, just how much people—magical, muggle, whichever—were willing to say when enough gold was shoved in front of their faces…and bartenders, Draco came to learn, were some of the most knowledgeable people in the world.

He supposed it made sense. Who better to hear and collect juicy gossip and information than those who essentially worked as cheap therapists for drunks when business was slow? Inebriated individuals spilled secrets like leaky faucets, and the bartenders of the world collected their words right along with their money.

But this last gentleman was a wizard, not a muggle, and so it was a much more straightforward bribery which occurred in _The Golden Chalice_ of Melbourne, Australia.

Draco had asked, somewhat vaguely, if there were any notably dark, suspicious locations that he should know about, hinting heavily that he _may_ work for the Department of Mysteries in Britain and that it _may_ be impossible for him to explain in detail due to magical contracts, restraints, and obligations, but that his cooperation would be _so_ (underhandedly, monetarily) appreciated.

The information he'd gleaned was simply too intriguing not to look into.

There was an island not far off the coast which was rumored to be cursed. The Magical Commonwealth of Australia had attempted to do many things to it—vanish it, barricade it, make it unplottable—but no enchantments worked within the vicinity. There was very little which the wizarding public knew about it other than one, terrifying thing:

Magic didn't work there.

Magic. Didn't. Work. There.

"Bollocks," Draco had said, when the young bartender told him so in a hushed voice.

"It doesn't! I heard directly from a man who works for the Magical Commonwealth, sir. It's cursed. There's an anti-muggle ward around the area and it's illegal for witches and wizards to go there—not that anyone would, mind you. Not being able to use magic! And not just your wand or what have you, neither. _Nothing_ magical works at all. Not brooms, not anything. Who would want to go?" He'd paused, one eyebrow raised when Draco's eyes gleamed inquisitively. "…Do _you_ want to go?"

"Maybe I do," Draco had responded coolly. "Can you tell me about where it is?"

It took a few more galleons for him to suddenly remember where he thought it just might be. Draco scribbled the information down hurriedly, feeling altogether too excited to go to a location where his wand would be useless.

"But if you can't take a broom or apparate there, how does one get to it…?" he'd murmured, realizing only then how massively inconvenient this was.

He hadn't expected to get an answer to that, but he did. "Take a boat," the bartender had said, shrugging.

…And so Draco was looking into that.

He was flipping through a muggle magazine about these _boats_ , and it was ridiculous, these enormous things which muggles had invented to take them places! Draco didn't know a damn thing about boats, but he was pretty sure that he would need a crew of effing muggles to help him run one, and he wasn't about to do that.

Then he flipped to a section which had something much more his style and size.

A crew of muggles, no…but maybe just one.

* * *

"Hey there. Girl."

The muggle girl in question looked up at Draco with narrowed eyes, probably because he had just called her girl, and he supposed that might have been rude. He'd been watching her for a while. She was young, possibly a few years older than himself, with curly brown hair and dark eyes. By the way she was examining the merchandise, Draco could tell that she had experience with these contraptions.

Young, experienced, and currently by herself: just what Draco was looking for.

"Yes…?" she said, looking instantly skeptical. Draco frowned. Did he really come off so immediately distrustful? "Can I help you?"

"In fact, I think you can," Draco said smoothly. "Do you know how to ride one of these Jet Ski things?"

She looked like she wasn't sure if she should laugh at him or not. "I… Yes, I know how to ride one of these _Jet Ski things,"_ she replied. "Why?"

Draco took a step closer to her and lowered his voice. "Because I want to learn, but I've never touched one." He smiled in the most charming, endearing way that he could. "What's your name?"

She looked at Draco like he might be something other than human. "…Melody," she said after a long moment of silent scrutiny.

"Melody, my name is Malfoy, Draco Malfoy. And that—ah, that means nothing to you, does it?"

She stared at him. "Draco Malfoy?" she repeated disbelievingly. "Uh… No, can't say that it does."

He laughed. "Right—I just—sorry. Anyway, I'd like to make you a deal, Melody. I want to learn how to ride one of these. I want to learn, and I want to learn quickly, and I want to do it tomorrow morning. On a scale of one to ten, how much do you like that red one you've been eyeing for the last ten minutes?"

Melody balked at him, clearly a bit perturbed that he'd been watching her ogle over a bright crimson Kawasaki. "I…uh… I suppose I would say eleven, if I'm being honest," she answered, staring at it wistfully.

"Right. What would say if I told you I was prepared to buy two of them, and that I wanted you to teach me how to ride tomorrow? To repay for your services, you could keep one afterwards."

She stared at him blankly, her jaw falling open and eyes going wide. Draco was too impatient to deal with her speechlessness for long. "Melody," he said, putting his arm around her shoulder where she stood frozen to the spot. "Listen. I'm a busy man. If you don't want to do it, by all means you may say no—I'll find someone else. But this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Will you help me out, or not?"

"I have class tomorrow," she said blankly.

"Skive," Draco responded, shrugging.

Melody swallowed audibly, and her voice dropped to a whisper. "Are…are we being recorded, or something? Am I on some kind of a reality TV show?" Her eyes darted around the mostly empty warehouse like she was looking for something.

"What? A reality what? No," Draco said, annoyed. "Just answer the question—what's it going to be, a few hours of your time in exchange for the ride of your life, or are we done, here?"

She glanced quickly at the red Jet Ski before looking back to him. Later, Draco would tell himself that her quick decision had less to do with the bribe and more to do with his stunning good looks and charismatic smile.

"I'm in," she said, grinning.

* * *

"This…is… _awesome!"_

They'd been out on the water for less than an hour, and Draco hadn't stopped laughing and smiling the entire time. As it turned out, he'd purchased two of the finest personal watercrafts that muggle money could buy. The red one for her, a green one for himself… and they went _fast._

Nowhere near as fast as a quality broomstick, of course, but still. There was something extremely exhilarating about the whole ordeal. The machine rumbling beneath him, the roar of the engine when he accelerated, the wind on his face and sea water splashing in all directions when he turned. Draco could suddenly understand the appeal of doing something like, say, enchanting a muggle motorcycle so that it could fly.

It was all so… _exposing_ , too. Draco rarely did things like go swimming, even when the weather was agreeable in Britain. But here he was, wearing nothing but swimming trunks, his absurdly pale skin practically glowing in the Australian sunshine (he did, at least, have the foresight to slather on the most effective magical sun protectant available before leaving).

But there was no way he would go anywhere without his wand or his fully stocked dragon-skin bag, the former of which was currently inside of the latter. Fortunately, the seat of his new ride opened up to reveal a compartment, and so Draco was able to stash his bag in there.

He finally slowed to a stop, unable to stop grinning for even a second. Melody pulled up beside him, looking equally windswept and cheery. She killed the engine so that they could talk, and Draco quickly did the same. "You ride like a professional! You haven't even wiped out once," she said, sweeping some of her hair out of her face. "Are you sure you've never ridden before?"

"Nope. I must be a natural," Draco said. Though really, he thought, they were extremely easy to maneuver. He probably could have figured it out himself if he'd bothered to try.

"So then… _Draco_ ," Melody said, the emphasis on his name a clear indication that she thought his name was made up. "You seem to be getting along just fine, don't you think? So, unless there's something else you need from me…"

Draco pursed his lips, trying to come to a decision he had been deliberating on for a while, now. He'd chosen this specific bay for a reason; if that bartender was correct, then they were only a few kilometers from where this supposed 'cursed island' was.

He'd initially planned on going out alone, once he felt comfortable enough riding one of these things.

…However.

Now that he was out on the water, a few things occurred to him that he had not thought of before. What if he _did_ wipe out, and flung himself into the water? He wasn't a great swimmer, and he was pretty sure this 'life vest' that he was wearing was a joke of a safety device and would do little to help him stay afloat.

Even more potentially upsetting—what if something _truly_ awful happened, and this Jet Ski broke down? If this stupid island really did exist and it really was cursed, and he was stranded somewhere, alone and unable to use magic…

"Actually," Draco said, making up his mind. "There _is_ something else you can do for me. How do you feel about going for a bit of a longer ride, Melody?"

She grinned, gripping the handles and making the engine roar to life again. "Lead the way!"

Draco did.

* * *

Making Melody accompany him turned out to be an even smarter idea than Draco could have anticipated.

He knew the general area of where the island was supposed to be, but he may have wandered about on his Jet Ski for hours if it weren't for Melody.

"Oh, my god! Draco!" she suddenly screamed, loud enough to be heard even over the rumbling of their engines. She stopped, looking absolutely panicked. "I forget, I completely forgot—I have a doctor's appointment, and I can't miss it—"

Draco stared, quickly glancing upwards and smiling widely when he saw it. Just the barest hint of something shimmering, a translucency he surely would have missed otherwise. _The anti-muggle ward._

"I have to go, I to go back, I—"

"Melody. Listen to me," Draco said sternly, maneuvering his own Jet Ski closer to her. "You don't have a doctor's appointment. You haven't forgotten anything."

She shook her head stubbornly. "No, I do, I—"

"With who? What doctor? And for what?"

She gaped at him for a moment, her mind clearly racing. "I… It's important, it's…"

Melody frowned, looking down at the water concernedly. " _Exactly_ ," Draco said when she could come up with nothing. "You don't have any appointment at all." She glanced back up at him, confusion and concern written all over her face.

Draco considered her for a long moment. What would happen if he broke the Statue of Secrecy here? He wasn't in Britain anymore, and besides, it wasn't like he was going to actually _perform_ magic…

Draco decided to word things carefully. "You think you have a doctor's appointment because you're being affected by a…a magnetic force field," he said. "There's something, uh, _electric_ in the air around here that messes with people's minds, trying to keep people away. But we're going to keep going, anyway. You don't have somewhere else you need to be. Do you believe me?"

Melody was quiet for a long time. "…What?" she said weakly.

"You believe that you don't have a doctor's appointment, right? Because you can't even recall what it is, can you?"

"…No…"

"Because of the force field. There's a secret island around here that your government is trying to keep people away from. I've been trying to find it. I don't care if you believe me or not, but here are your options: you can either turn back now and try to figure out some doctor's appointment that you _know_ isn't real, or you can come with me. Your choice."

She stared at Draco for a long moment, her face completely blank. "A secret island," she said slowly. "…A secret island that the _governmen_ t is hiding from us."

"Yes."

"And you've been looking for it."

"Yes."

"And they're using a _magnetic force field_ to keep people away. One that literally makes people think they need to leave when they get too close? Like…like magic?"

Draco instantly laughed. "Yes," he said, smiling. "It's very, _very_ much like magic."

Her emotionless face became suddenly interested, curiosity sparking in her eyes. Draco was just shocked that she didn't immediately start calling him crazy. "Well, what in the world is on it? How and why is the government hiding an _entire island?"_

"That's what I want to find out," Draco answered, grinning wryly. "Are you coming with me, then?"

"You know, a more sensible person would probably stay far, far away from you, _Draco Malfoy_ ," Melody admitted, but she was smirking. "But you know what? Fuck it, yeah, I'm coming with. Let's go find a cursed island."

Draco grinned, revving his engine and heading towards where he could see the ward shimmering, the direction the island must be in. She followed close behind him, and he couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity of it all.

Draco Malfoy, purposefully bringing a _muggle_ companion with him through an _anti-muggle_ ward on his quest to find _Harry Potter_ , the Master of Death.

Life really was strange.

* * *

They rode for several minutes before a series of jarring, disturbing events happened which made Draco's amused disposition vanish entirely.

The first was a rush of heat that swept over his body at some point—an undeniable feeling of something magical. Had they passed some new sort of barrier, had they triggered some kind of alarm?

Draco hardly had time to worry about that before another, far more powerful sensation won his full attention.

It felt like his insides had been hollowed out, as though all the warmth of his blood and tissues had been sucked right out of his body. He shivered violently, slowing down, and for a moment he found it difficult to breath. Melody slowed as well, looking concerned. Obviously, whatever had just affected him had done nothing to her.

"Are you all right?" she asked.

It took Draco several long, shaky breaths for him to realize what had just happened.

His magic. This was his magic being suppressed. This, right here, right now… was what it felt like to be magic-less.

He stared at the muggle girl with new eyes. "Is this how you feel all the time?" he gasped, the horrified question escaping his lips before he could stop it.

"What are you talking about? I—oh! Oh, my god!" Melody pointed over Draco's head, looking awestruck. "Draco, look!"

Draco turned and looked over his shoulder. There, not far in front of them at all, was a small, desert island that had certainly not been there just moments before. The sky around was darker, clouds gathering over it like a storm was brewing. Every single thing about it screamed ominous and dangerous.

If Draco had been by himself he may have turned around right then. The sudden feeling of being magic-less was horrifying. He had never felt more vulnerable in his life.

But Melody, the young, muggle girl who had just seen real magic for the first time in her life and did not feel the loss of something which she had never known, visibly brightened. "Draco, did you see that? It just _showed up_! Wow! You were right—shit, what else is the government hiding from us?" She revved her engine, moving in that direction and hesitating when Draco did not immediately follow. "Well, what are you waiting for? I thought you'd been looking for this! Let's go!"

Draco stared at her, amazed at her daring. "You're a Gryffindor, for sure."

"What is that supposed to mean?" she asked, noting the tone of his voice. "Is that some kind of insult?"

"Actually… No," Draco responded. "It just means you're very brave, is all."

"Oh. Well, you're a Gryffindor, too, then," she said, grinning. "Let's go see what's up with this crazy island already!"

Draco took a deep breath and nodded. If this muggle girl could so fearlessly walk into something with nothing but her curiosity driving her, then he, Draco Malfoy, could do the same thing for Harry.

 _You better be here you asshole,_ Draco thought as they sped towards the island.

_I'm going to find you._

* * *

By the time they actually made it to the shore, Draco's sense of foreboding had increased exponentially. The air vibrated with a sinister energy, and the sky, too, darkened several shades. Around the perimeter of the island were some large pieces of driftwood, but where the branches may have come from, Draco had no idea. His heart was racing as they stepped onto the sandy shores place which looked as though it had nothing living on it at all.

Draco reached into the compartment of his Jet Ski under his seat and grabbed his bag. He slung it over his shoulder, resisting the instinctual urge to pull out his wand and have it at the ready. He knew it would be useless here, and besides, the muggle would just be even more confused.

Unlike Draco, Melody seemed not to notice the ominous atmosphere even slightly. She looked around the empty space and frowned. "What _is_ this place?" she said, walking forward. The ground went uphill at a slight incline. Draco followed behind her warily.

"I dunno." Draco felt so empty, so unnatural. His every instinct was telling him that this was a very _bad_ place, and they should leave, right now. It was dark and heavy with the feeling of—

_Death._

Somehow, without knowing how he knew it, Draco could feel the undeniable presence of Death itself in this place.

It was a thought that would have made anyone else run _away,_ not _towards._

Feeling both terrified and excited, Draco continued to follow Melody up the hill. He was extremely glad to not be here alone.

They walked in silence for a few moments. Everything was eerily still, a seemingly blank space of white sand surrounded by dark, calm waters. The only sound Draco could hear was that of his own heart thumping against his rib cage, quick and erratic.

Then everything went to hell.

The sand suddenly began falling directly in front of them, an instant and inexplicable whirlpool of quicksand that nearly swallowed them both. Draco and Melody screamed, backing away as quickly as possible to escape.

Draco tripped and fell. A gaping chasm was forming itself before them, and he would have fallen into it if Melody hadn't grabbed his arm and yanked him away with a strength he would have never expected from such a small girl.

It was like the center of the island was falling in on itself. A huge hole of deepest black had formed, and there was something moving, something writhing within the shadows below—

Their incoherent screams both died, so horrified were they at the scene which unfolded before them.

Rotting, animated corpses began crawling out of the still sifting sand, dragging their decaying bodies from the hole. Draco's heart stopped at sight of what he knew _had_ to be _Inferi._

The terror froze him. Draco stood there, his wand useless in his bag, unable to do anything but stare in unfathomable horror as the undead crawled over each other, pushing themselves to their feet where the skin and flesh peeled off their bones. Draco was rendered immobile as one came near him, petrified as the one thought dashed across his mind:

_I am going to become one of them._

" _Ahhhhh!"_

A scream that was more of a battle cry jump-started Draco's heart back to life. Melody had gone and grabbed a piece of driftwood, rushing headlong towards the Inferi closest to Draco and stabbing it in the face. The wood went straight through it's eye socket, and after a suspended moment where the corpse stood there, unmoving, it crumpled and fell to the ground.

By the time she had turned to face him again, Draco had recovered enough from his frozen moment of terror to react. Without a word, they both ran, sprinting for their Jet Skis on the shore.

"Oh, fuck! Oh, fuck!" Melody started screaming repeatedly as she fumbled for her key and hurriedly started the engine. Draco did the same, resisting the urge to glance over his shoulder where more Inferi continued to stagger towards them. They were incredibly slow, at least.

And then Draco stared in blank horror when the engine wouldn't start. "What's wrong with this thing!?" he roared, trying again and again to start it.

Melody glanced over at it. "Oh, Jesus, you're out of fuel!"

"What is fuel!?"

Melody's frightened expression turned so thunderstruck that it might have been comical, under other circumstances. " _How_ do you—no, just—get on mine with me!"

Draco didn't wait to be told twice. He scrambled onto the back of Melody's Jet Ski and wrapped his arms around her waist, and the two took off just as the first wave of Inferi were closing in.

The second they took off into the water, safely away from the moving corpses, Melody stared screaming. "Holy fuck! _Holy fuck!_ Zombies! The government is hiding a zombie island!" she yelled.

"Zom-what?" Draco shouted back.

"Zombies! Those were fucking zombies! Oh hell, it's the apocalypse, Draco, _it's the zombie apocalypse!_ "

"Those weren't zombies!" Draco yelled, having never heard the word before and feeling he at least owed her the truth. "Those were Inferi!"

She glanced back at him, dubious. "What the _fuck_ are Inferi?"

"They're products of dark magic, it's… They're basically animated corpses!"

"…That is a _fucking zombie!"_ Melody screeched, louder than ever.

Draco felt the sudden, welcoming sensation of his magic sparking back to life as they sped further away from the cursed island. He breathed out a heavy sigh of relief, and it struck him so strongly that he couldn't help it—he started laughing.

Melody hit the brakes, letting the engine idle so that she could look at him properly. She looked fiercely angry, despite how ashen her face was.

"Why are you laughing!? Who the _fuck_ are you?"

Draco was grinning like an idiot, slap-happy from the rush of adrenaline coursing through them after their escape. It was all just so absurd! "I'm a wizard! A _really_ stupid one!" he confessed, not even caring about secrets at this point. "And you! _You_ just killed an Inferi! That was amazing!"

"You mean that zombie?" Melody finally stopped shouting. She cracked a smile, too—probably starting to feel the same euphoria that only followed a near-death experience that Draco was experiencing. "Head shots, Draco, everyone knows that."

There was a beat of silence, and then they were both laughing harder than ever. Draco's hands were shaking and he felt like he might be sick, but he was _alive._

Their laughter ended at the sound of half a dozen loud, ear-splitting _cracks_. Six witches and wizards in dark cloaks suddenly appeared on brooms, hovering around Draco and Melody and encircling them. They all rose their wands at the same time, and—

Draco reacted instinctively. He grabbed Melody around the waist and fell backwards, plunging them into the water and dodging a plethora of brightly colored spells.

It was a valiant attempt at escape, but a futile one. Draco cursed himself or not having thought to grab his wand from his bag the second he felt his magic stirring within him again. He knew that apparating without one was _possible,_ but he'd never been able to do it, and he wasn't about to try with a squirming muggle in his arms.

He also cursed the life vests they wore, which, as it turned out, worked quite well indeed at keeping them afloat.

Draco laughed weakly at the wizard who hovered closest to him. The older man did not look amused as he pointed his wand not at them, but to his side, where a large, floating platform appeared. Then he pointed his wand at Draco and Melody, wordlessly causing the two teenagers to float out of the water and land on the landing he'd just created, where they sprawled gracelessly onto its hard surface. The wizard then stood next to them, dismounting his broom and looking extraordinarily irate.

Melody stared all around, looking about the people flying on brooms holding wands with huge eyes, completely amazed. "Oh my god," she gasped, looking at Draco. "You really are a wizard. Wizards…are _real._ "

Draco just nodded, not really seeing the point in denying it. She ran a hand through her hair, looking like she might faint. "This is even crazier than the time I found out canned potatoes were a thing," she murmured, her eyes going out of focus.

" _Stupefy."_

A red flash flew from the tip of one of the witch's wands, hitting Melody right in the chest. The poor girl looked surprised for a split second before she slumped forward, unconscious.

"That was uncalled for!" Draco shouted angrily. He caught her by the shoulders before she hit her head and held her to his chest.

"Who are you?" the wizard looming over them barked, ignoring Draco's outcry. His voice was low and threatening.

"Hey… He looks familiar," one of the other wizards spoke up, leaning forward on his broom. "Are you famous or something, kid? What's your name?"

"Longbottom." Draco answered so quickly and confidently that he surprised even himself. "Neville Longbottom."

"Oh… oh yeah! You were in the papers quite a bit a while ago, weren't you? Britain's little wizarding hero."

"That's me," Draco said, putting his hands up defensively. "You caught me."

"I don't give a damn _who_ you are," the wizard before him snapped. "Mr. Longbottom, why are you here? This particular zone is off limits to _all_ personal. Surely you felt the magical suppression within the vicinity?"

"Yeah," Draco said grievously. "Yeah, I did. What the hell is that island? It's infested with Inferi!"

The wizards and witches all exchanged dark glances. "That's classified," that same man finally said. "The pertinent information here is that you have broken the law. Not only have you ridden out into forbidden waters, but you took a non-magical individual with you and exposed them to magic. These are very grievous offenses, Mr. Longbottom. British war hero or not, you're under arrest."

Two of the witches dismounted, one of whom conjured up a very menacing pair of glowing, enchanted handcuffs. "Wh-what?" Draco stuttered, pulling the unconscious girl more tightly to his chest like a human shield.

"Don't worry, we'll take care of the girl's memory," one of them said, almost pityingly.

"No! No, you can't! You can't do that, you can't arrest me—don't you just, you know, give out slips with a date for a future hearing, or something?"

They all laughed. "I don't know how they do it in Britain, but the Magical Commonwealth of Australia doesn't work like that. You're under arrest _now_ , Mr. Longbottom. As in, you are being detained _at this very moment_."

Draco had just reached into his bag when a stunner hit him in the back, plunging him into darkness.

* * *

' _Draco… Draco… Draco…'_

Draco groaned.

He knew he was dreaming at once, because this nightmare was a familiar one.

The Department of Mysteries.

Currently, he was sprawled out on the cold, stone floor, like he'd passed out there, right in front of the dais. He pushed himself into a seated position, shivering when he looked up.

He was looking at the veil from the exact same place where he had witnessed it happen. Where he'd watched Harry reach out with one hand, a golden ring on his finger with that symbol…

A line within a circle within a triangle…

Draco watched the flickering fabric for a while on the floor. Whatever was happening on the other side of reality, he was sure it wasn't good. He was probably being hauled into a cell right now, soon to be woken up and questioned as to why the hell he was purposefully going to an illegal, cursed island on Jet Skis with a muggle.

"Because I'm looking for the Master of Death, of course," he muttered, realizing just how crazy it sounded, even in his dream.

"Yes, that's what I thought."

Draco jumped violently at the sound of a soft, familiar voice.

Luna Lovegood was sitting in the front row of the empty, stone auditorium, directly in front of the dais. She was wearing yellow, but she had no sunflower in her hair, anymore.

"Luna?" Draco balked in surprise, jumping to his feet.

"Hello, Draco," she said. Her gaze flickered to the veil, her expression blank. "You dream about this place a lot then, too?"

Draco's eyes fell to the floor. "All the time," he admitted, feeling strangely embarrassed about it. Luna hummed understandably, but didn't comment.

"Wait—Luna! I'm not just dreaming you up, am I? You can do that, you can use dream magic, right? You're actually here?"

She blinked at him slowly, giving Draco no indication whatsoever that she understood what he meant.

"Luna, I need you to listen to me," he went on, walking towards her and placing both of his hands on her shoulders. "I'm in trouble. I—"

"It was my fault."

"I—what?"

Luna stayed sitting, looking up at Draco with huge, blue eyes that were suddenly filling with tears. "It was my fault, Draco. I gave him his cloak back, I woke him up in St. Mungo's. I thought he deserved to make his own choice, you know? But I miss him. Did I do the wrong thing?"

Draco stared, completely unprepared for this confession. He gaped at her for a long moment before deciding that he didn't have time to confront this truth, not now. "Luna, listen, please. I'm in Australia, I was taken into custody by their aurors or whatever. I need you to help me. I can't go to whatever their version of Azkaban is!"

"You've gotten yourself arrested? In Australia?" she asked, tears still gathering at the corners of her eyes. Draco nodded. "Well… That was silly, Draco."

Draco opened his mouth, about to seethe something impatiently, to—

" _Rennervate_."

Draco woke with a start.

He found himself in a small, dark room, his hands bound behind his back in a rigid, wooden chair. A table was in front of him and three wizards towered over him, their wands drawn and their faces cold. One of them was the man whom had placed him under arrest. Draco swallowed thickly.

"Mr. Longbottom," the familiar wizard drawled. "My name is Douglass Hahn. Do you remember what it was you did to find yourself here?"

Draco feigned thoughtfulness for a while. "Hmmm… Nope, can't say that I do," he said, smiling. "Should probably just let me go, then."

"Very funny," Hahn said drily. He slammed his hands down on the table, leaning closer to Draco and looking murderous. " _Why were you in Portae Mortis?_ " he roared.

Draco flinched. "Wh-what? Porta-what?"

The older man stared into Draco's eyes unflinchingly. Draco had experienced his godfather doing this very thing to him far too many times to not sense that he was having his mind probed at. _I don't know what you're talking about_ , he thought adamantly, shielding his deeper thoughts behind Occlumency barriers as best he could.

After a long, tense moment, Hahn finally backed away. "Who are you _really_?" he asked slowly.

Draco stared at the ceiling. "Neville Longbottom," he answered stubbornly.

" _Look at me_ when you speak!" Hahn roared. Draco saw him drawing his wand from the corner of his eyes. He braced himself, knowing that he was about to be hit with something horrendous—

A sharp _crack_ echoed loudly in the room, causing two of the three wizards to fire off spells at once. But it was not Draco whom they directed their curses towards, but something small and _yellow_ and—

"Dobby?" Draco balked in absolute disbelief—but no, it was _Kreacher_ ; Kreacher was here, and he had landed on the table, and was that his bag?

" _You shall not touch Mr. Malfoy!"_ the old elf screeched. Their curses went flying off in the wrong direction, like Kreacher had summoned an invincible force field of immense protection.

Hahn fired off a curse of his own, but Kreacher snapped his fingers and his wand flew from his hands. Then, before anyone could so much as react to that, Kreacher hopped onto Draco's lap, grabbed him about the waist, and disapparated with him.

They landed somewhere that Draco didn't recognize. A desolate, stormy place by the sea, the antithesis of the warm and friendly beaches of Australia. Instead of sand, there were stones—perilous and rocky cliffs.

"Kreacher!" Draco shouted in disbelief. The elf had already begun busying himself with untying his restraints. " _How_ did you— _where_ did you—"

"Mistress Lovegood has been sending me," he muttered. Then, as though Draco couldn't have been thankful enough already, he dropped Draco's dragon-skin bag at his feet.

"Luna," he breathed. "So she really could hear me… Kreacher, you have to thank her for me." Kreacher nodded stiffly. "Where are we? Is this Britain? Also, what _are_ you wearing?"

Maybe it shouldn't have mattered, but Kreacher's attire certainly was jarring. He was wearing what appeared to be a horrible, miniature tuxedo, only it was entirely yellow. "Mistress Lovegood says yellow is her favorite color, so Kreacher has made himself a yellow outfit to make her smile," he answered. "She is not giving Kreacher the clothes herself, sir, only the order that Kreacher can make and wear whatever he is liking."

Draco hated how that made his heart ache a bit. "To answer your other question, sir, we are in Britain. I know you is trying to avoid Britain… Kreacher is sorry, sir. It is the first place Kreacher is thinking of."

Kreacher stared off vacantly towards the turbulent waters, out to where he could see the mouth of dark and ominous looking cave. The elf didn't explain further than that.

"Thank you, Kreacher," Draco said, grabbing his bag and slinging it over his shoulder. "Really. Thank you. I owe you and Luna more than you could know."

Kreacher slowly looked back to him. Draco got the impression that the elf hadn't heard a word he'd just said when he'd bene staring at that cave. "Mistress Lovegood is also wanting Kreacher to warn Mr. Malfoy not to go to any major cities in Brazil, sir," he said.

Draco blinked in surprise. "What? Why not?"

"Because your _mother_ is there, sir."

Kreacher gave him one last, condescending glance before bowing low to the ground and disapparating…leaving Draco feeling more conflicted and alone than ever before.

 


	6. The Realm Beyond

_Halloween._

Having grown up in an esteemed, pureblood family which upheld the traditions of the wizarding world (even the more questionable ones), Draco had always regarded All Hallows' Eve as a day of reverence and respect.

Last Halloween, only two months after the initial tragedy that was the celebrated 'Victory Day' in magical Britain, Draco had spent the day in the country of Ireland. He'd been researching the _Oweynagat_ , otherwise known as 'the Cave of the Cats'. It was where the origin of Halloween was born, in fact. A portal which—and this was according to _muggle_ folklore—opened up to the land of the dead, allowing werewolves and demons and all sorts of monsters to walk the earth for an entire day. Disguising oneself as a harmful spirit was supposed to keep them away, hence the horrid practice of muggles dressing up as what they thought of as witches and such.

Well, the _Oweynagat_ was just a hole in the ground, and nothing more. Draco had spent all day and night on last All Hallows' Eve in the middle of nowhere, hating his life and cursing the tenacity of Harry Potter. One of his more normal days, really.

Halloween in New Orleans was an entirely different matter.

Draco was beside himself. Everywhere he looked, muggles in garish, glittering costumes meandered past him—drunk, probably, if not high on something far more potent than alcohol. He could see that the tradition of pretending to be an evil spirit was entirely lost, too. The muggle women looked more like brothel whores than monsters (not that Draco was complaining), and the men looked more like rock stars than goblins (Draco actually felt underdressed compared to most of them).

He'd decided to come to New Orleans this Halloween for no other reason than he'd heard it was quite the party.

Oh, was it.

The sun had only just set, and already Draco felt like he was in some kind of strange mixture of a horror story and a glamorous festival.

During the day it had been relatively amusing. There was a parade, there were children running about, there was candy tossed in the air (Draco developed a quick abhorrence for _War Heads,_ which were hard candies that looked like they would be sweet but which were actually awful), and it was really just a chaotic and colorful shit show, truth be told, but it was light and fun.

The moment night fell, everything changed.

Men and women in costumes that were far more appropriate for the holiday came out, wearing long robes of black and pointed, red nails that reminded him of his deceased aunt. Draco even saw people walking around with staffs and what looked very much like wands…

_Very_ much like wands.

Suspicious, Draco began tailing a pair of 'witches' which he thought might _actually be witches_. Their clothes were convincing enough, and the 'wands' they carried looked legitimate, too… But how could he tell? Deciding that there was no harm in it here, Draco pulled out his own wand and followed them.

But the streets were crowded and Draco had made the mistake of having two (more like four, but who was counting) drinks earlier that day (as well as nothing to eat but deplorable amount of candy—well, they were just throwing it around, weren't they?), and so he was not exactly as agile as he normally was. His quarry turned a corner and he lost them. Scowling, Draco looked left and right, lamenting his inability to track.

" _Ah!_ Oh, sorry!" A woman wearing some strappy, sparkly contraption stumbled into him. Draco steadied her and gaped.

She was bleeding. There were two small but very bloody marks on her neck, and her eyes were glassy and out of focus, like she was in daze. Draco supported nearly all of her body weight as she leaned on him, grinning deliriously.

Well, it didn't take even a semi-magical education to see what had happened to her. "You've been bitten by a vampire," he stated bluntly, shocked.

"Yeah," she said, pushing away from him and standing uneasily on her own two feet again. "I know! He's over here. Or, he was. _Sanguini!_ "

A thin, pale man seemed to emerge from nothingness at the sound of his name. The woman giggled and fell into his arms. "There you are!" she trilled, running a hand down his face and bleeding onto his shirt.

Draco stared at him, terrified. "You—you! _Sanguini_ … You're a _real_ vampire!"

"Of _course_ I am," Sanguini purred. He picked the muggle up like a bride—one who was as high as a god damn kite—with surprising ease, considering how frail he looked. Draco could tell by the way he was looking at him and eyeing his wand amusedly that he thought Draco was just another silly muggle. "And you're a _real_ wizard."

"I _am_ a real wizard! And _you_ , I know you—or heard of you, at least—you were at Slughorn's party, you were at Hogwarts—"

The vampire's face cleared in a second. He deposited the inebriated woman into the arms of someone whom Draco hoped was a colleague of his, and not just some random stranger—but then again, maybe the woman would have been better off—before grabbing him by the elbow and pulling him around the corner of a building.

"What the hell is this?" Draco asked, before he could speak. "Are—are there just _vampires_ and _witches_ walking around all over the place, here?"

"Basically," Sanguini answered, tugging Draco further into the recesses of the privacy of an alleyway and shoving him against a brick wall. "I would ask who you are—obviously, you were a student at Horace's little party—but I don't really care. In fact, let's just pretend like we never even ran into each other in the first place. Does that sound… _agreeable_ to you? Or do I need to be more…persuasive?"

His dark eyes flickered down to Draco's neck, and Draco instantly pointed his wand in his face. "Are you _threatening_ me, vampire?"

"Of course not," Sanguini replied. He smiled up at Draco, revealing two very long, pointed fangs. "But keep in mind that I can move extremely fast and cause a lot of damage _very_ quickly… Do you feel like you can take on a vampire? There is nothing holding me back, today… But I have no intention of harming you if you just walk away, and we pretend we never saw each other."

Draco swallowed thickly. Sanguini watched the way his Adam's apple bobbed as though fascinated. "What the hell is this madness," Draco muttered, trying valiantly to sound unafraid. "Witches and wizards out in public, vampires just biting people out on the street—"

"That's only scratching the surface," Sanguini interrupted, laughing softly.

"H-how? Doesn't the American magical government or whatever care that this is happening?"

"Of course they do," the vampire said, his tone clipped. "Typically, the Magical Congress of the United States of America is _extremely_ strict with their laws, _especially_ those involving magical creatures and magic being performed in front of nomadges—muggles."

Sanguini smiled wickedly, trailing a spidery finger up Draco's throat in an action that was so unexpected that Draco just stood there, frozen.

"But this is _Halloween,_ boy… and they gave up on New Orleans a long, _long_ time ago."

Then, just as Draco thought his knees might buckle from fright, Sanguini turned and vanished, his cold voice ringing in Draco's ears.

Draco stood there for a long time afterwards. His heart raced as he watched the people wander past. Suddenly, every single individual was a mystery—was that _really_ a muggle, or was that a witch? Was that man with the crazy ears and huge fangs _really_ some hybrid, werewolf monstrosity, or was that just a really good costume? Draco frantically searched the sky, exhaling an audible puff of relief when he saw that the moon was only a thin sliver in the sky. Thank _Merlin._

After several minutes of deep breathing and thanking the universe that he had not been murdered (or worse) by a vampire… Draco began to feel exhilarated.

Halloween, in New Orleans… If there was anyone who knew about a real connection between this world and the next, or whatever existed in between, they were sure to be here.

The night was young.

* * *

Draco was _amazed._

The closer it got to midnight, the crazier people became. Witches were selling voodoo dolls on street corners that looked disturbingly like they might be real, there were shrunken heads hanging from necklaces, the kind which Draco was sure he'd seen being sold in Knockturn Alley at some point… He even saw a goblin—a real, _actual_ goblin—go walking past, and heard a muggle say, "I'd dress up a leprechaun, myself, if I were a little person."

Even wilder was that Draco actually felt offended on the goblin's behalf.

Draco began actively looking for people who were probably real witches or wizards, then. Someone who could point him in the right direction, possibly to a Seer or some Voodoo-practicing Sorcerer who may know something. Hell, Draco thought, maybe séances were real, and not just some muggle-contrived imagination. Maybe he could find an actual medium and have a conversation with Harry that way.

_Except Harry's not dead,_ Draco reminded himself firmly. _He is not dead. I am Draco Malfoy, and I am looking for the realm beyond; for Harry Potter, the Master of Death…not a dead boy._

He hadn't even realized he'd been staring vacantly at some decrepit-looking old woman until she spoke.

She was mostly concealed by shadows, so it wasn't like Draco had been _purposefully_ staring at her. Tiny, too; a very small, hunched woman in black, ratty robes that made her look more like she might be part elf. She glanced up at Draco with milky white eyes and smiled.

Something about her scared Draco far more than the vampire had.

"Draco Malfoy…" she whispered in an unnaturally low voice.

Draco's mouth ran dry. "What the—how the fuck—?" he spluttered, backing away and pointing his wand.

The old lady only smiled more widely, completely unperturbed by his reaction. "You seek the realm beyond, do you not?"

Draco stared. He lowered his wand a fraction of an inch. "I… yes," he breathed. "How did you—"

"We've been waiting for you."

Two more hunched, old women emerged on either side of the first, like figures forming from the shadows themselves. "We've been _waiting_ for you, Seeker of the Master of Death…"

Draco's breath hitched in his throat. He could not have invented a more appropriate title for himself.

"How… How did you know?"

Instead of answering with words, the three elderly women began to move in strangely slow, synchronized movements. One of them traced a triangle in midair with her finger, and the three-sided symbol remained hovering there as though she had burned it into the air itself. Then the woman on her right did the same thing, only she carved a circle inside of that triangle. The last woman then slashed through the center of these symbols, dividing them in half with a vertical line.

A line within a circle within a triangle.

Draco stared at the sign like he was witnessing something holy and inexplicable. "How did you know?" he asked again, his tone far more deferential.

The witches did not answer his question. "Come with us," the first said instead, one long finger beckoning him to follow.

Draco did.

* * *

The three old women led him to a deplorable looking pub that not even he would have chosen to go into. It was magical, for sure, Draco noticed the wards that must have made it invisible to muggles. A few suspicious characters in hooded cloaks sat in one corner, and a man who looked to be part giant stood behind the bar, but other than that, it was empty. Everyone was out enjoying the festivities on Halloween.

Those who were inside paid Draco and the witches no mind as they took him through a back door, towards a steep and ominous staircase which led into a basement. Draco turned and looked over his shoulder, hesitant to go down.

"We live here, Draco Malfoy. You are safe with us," one of the women said.

"Why are you taking me into your _home?_ " Draco asked, stepping away from them. "What, does your basement have some magical portal to the other side, or something?"

The witches all shared an amused glance. "Oh naïve, child," one said, reaching up and touching his face. Draco recoiled away from her—her fingers were freezing. "You have been looking for the answers in the wrong places," she said, pointing towards the door. "The way to the realm which you seek is not out _there_ …but in _here_."

She then aimed her knobby finger at his forehead, directly between his eyes.

"We can show you," the second witch said.

"We can show you where the Master of Death dwells… If you are willing."

The first witch held out her hand, waiting for him to take it. Draco had never felt a stronger sense of foreboding in his life.

He took her hand and descended into the darkness.

* * *

"I have to be naked?"

The room which they brought him to was creepier looking than anything he'd seen in New Orleans yet. Not because it was filled with dark objects or anything—quite the opposite, in fact. The room had nothing at all in it except a large, stone table, one which reminded Draco eerily of an altar.

And they had just requested that he lie down on it.

Naked.

" _Why?_ "

"You cannot take anything with you, into the realm beyond," one of the witches responded. "Do not worry, Draco. We will conduct the séance around you in the most controlled fashion possible. We have done this many times… You are perfectly safe with us."

"Perfectly safe."

Draco felt anything but. "This couldn't actually hurt me or something, could it? I'm just… It's just my subconscious that will go there, right? My body isn't going anywhere… right?"

"Your body will be right here with us, under our protection," one answered.

Draco bit his lower lip in confliction, staring down at the empty slab of stone. "…How much is this service going to cost me?" he said at length. It hadn't even occurred to him to ask before.

One of the women waved a wrinkled hand flippantly. "We can discuss your payment after the séance is over, and base it on how effective the enchantment was."

That, more than anything, probably should have caused alarm bells to go off in Draco's mind. It didn't. His breath hitched in his throat, irrationally excited and determined.

"Okay."

The witches turned away while he undressed, setting his robes, wand, and bag aside before climbing awkwardly onto the table. "Um. Do I just lay here, or—"

"On your back," one instructed. Lay on your back and close your eyes…"

Blushing, Draco did as he was told. He heard the soft sounds of the witches shuffling around him, but he didn't open his eyes to watch what they were doing.

"We are going to begin," one murmured. "You shall hear our hymn, and then it will feel warm and calming, like falling asleep…"

"Yes, just like falling asleep…"

Draco opened his mouth to ask a question, but they had already begun to chant. Wordless, nonsensical murmurings that were perfectly in synch between the three of them. The non-language had an immediate effect—Draco tried and failed to look at them, his eyelids suddenly feeling as though they were made of iron.

He felt so tired…

He felt so _wrong._

There was no help for it. Draco struggled fruitlessly against the weight of slumber, but it swallowed him whole.

* * *

White.

It went on, and on, and on.

Draco was walking in a world that was vast, empty, and extremely quiet… But not in a disconcerting way. It was serene, pure. Simple and Clean.

It was peaceful here.

Draco walked through the blank landscape for a time, feeling strangely calm. There was something about this place that made him feel…safe.

Then it began to snow.

Draco peered up into the infinite sky which was indiscernible from the equally spotless ground, and he could barely make it out against such a pristine backdrop, but what was falling gently from above… It was… No, it was _not_ snow, but…

Flower petals.

He smiled as one fluttered playfully close to his face. Just a few, at first, scattered and sparse, but then more and more began floating down from up above. White flower petals, twirling as they made their slow, entrancingly elegant descent onto the immaculate ground upon which he walked.

It was beautiful.

They fell on his shoulders and landed in his hair. Draco stopped walking, holding his hands out wide on either side of his body and looking up, as if he could maybe locate the source from which they fell. The smelled so strongly, too, clouding his mind with the pleasant aroma of lilies. The number of petals increased over time. Soon the air was full of them, forming into small piles at his feet. Draco closed his eyes and simply stood there, inhaling the floral scent.

When he finally looked up again, he saw it. A full one. A single, miraculously whole, white flower, complete with a number of bright green stamen poking out from the center. The tiny bit of color in this world of white stuck out like a beacon.

Smiling, Draco reached out a hand, waiting for it to float onto his stationary palm. It was just about to land, when—

Someone else made to catch it first.

It was a suspended moment. A hand, a pale, ghostly-looking hand had reached around him, and the lily was just about to fall onto his palm, when—

Everything changed.

The world of white flashed a violent _red_ , and Draco heard the sound of metal clashing and a fragmented, haunting piano song—someone was screaming, and his body was writhing—there was blood pouring from somewhere, but Draco was unsure of where—he was in so much pain, he could not bear it, he could not, he—

_Black._

…

It went on, and on, and on.

Draco was shaking, naked, and very, very afraid. He turned and looked all around him, unsure of what he was looking for—flower petals? A ghost? Some tiny bit of light?—but there was none. The world of peaceful white which he had just been in had vanished entirely, replaced by nothing but shadows and obscurity. It was cold, too. Draco hugged his arms around himself, shivering.

Draco did not feel safe, here.

"…Harry?" he called out, his voice small and feeble. He took a tentative step forward, and noticed then that the ground was covered in a small amount of water. It was like walking in a frigid dungeon, one which had never seen sunlight before. It was even quieter than the white landscape had been, only the silence hung heavy, terrifying him. Draco's heart raced. "Harry?" he called again, forcing himself to keep walking. The sounds of his feet against the hard, wet floor made him cringe.

There was a spark. Draco whirled on the spot, his heart leaping in his throat at the sight.

There he was.

_Harry._

His back was too him, but Draco knew at once that this was the Master of Death. His robes were long and silver, emitting a light that reminded him of the last vision he'd had, full of lilies and pureness. His hands were out on either side of him—on one, Draco could see the gleaming gold of that ring, and in the other, what was irrefutably the Deathstick.

"Harry!"

Draco ran towards him, but nearly fell when he did—the shallow puddle of water had suddenly become deeper, and it was like he had just stepped into a pool. It was freezing cold, reaching up to his knees. It stole the breath from Draco's lungs.

Harry turned to look at him over his shoulder. His eyes were an even more vibrant green than they had been before, and his skin was the color of snow. He tilted his head to one side, and he gave Draco a small, playful smile. It was a mischievous expression. It was a look that said:

_Catch me if you can._

He turned and slowly walked away.

"Wait! Harry— _wait!_ "

Draco rushed towards him, sloshing through water that became deeper with every step he took. Harry was, somehow, impossibly, staying on the surface, walking on water as he left Draco behind.

"Harry!" he screamed, going deeper and deeper into the lake of darkness. It was so cold that it felt like it was burning his skin off. It was doing something to him, too, making it difficult to move, to push forward…

He was getting weaker…

"Harry!" he gasped out, desperate as the water began finding its way down his throat and into his lungs. He was sinking, he was drowning… His vision was becoming blurred as Draco struggled to keep his head above water, reaching for Harry, who continued to ignore his cries…

"H…"

He felt so heavy…

There was laughter… A high, cold laughter that did not sound like Harry at all…

" _Malfoy!"_

Draco's eyes flew open, instantly coughing in a violent fit as someone shook him awake. His body ached. There was blood _everywhere._

"It's okay! You're okay…"

Once Draco finally caught his breath, he stared up in horror at the very unwanted face of Ginny Weasley.

"What… the fuck," he wheezed, instinctually trying to cover his naked body with his arms. It was a futile action that made him realize where all the blood was coming from. Draco's sides and chest were covered in scratches—not very deep, but numerous. He glanced around the room, terrified at what he saw.

The three witches were on the floor—dead. "What the _fuck!_ " he shouted. "Weasley—you just—did you _kill_ these witches!?"

" _Witches?_ " Ginny, who had been touching his shoulder in a soothing manner, instantly retracted and put her hands on her hips. Draco noted her wand held firmly in her grasp. "Witches? Malfoy, you sodding idiot—those weren't witches! Those were _banshees!_ "

"Wh…what?"

"Banshees!" she roared. "How could you not see that? Four feet tall, looking like old ladies, milky white eye—natural legilimens…"

Draco was speechless. "B…banshees," he said blankly.

Ginny sighed and grabbed his outer cloak, draping it over his bleeding, quivering body. "Yes," she said, clearly trying to keep her voice level. "Those were banshees. For Salazar's sake, Malfoy, didn't you pay attention for a moment in Defense Against the Dark Arts? We spent an entire year going over dark creatures."

Draco didn't respond to that, only stared vacantly down at the three deceased creatures on the floor. "You killed three banshees," he stated, blunt. He felt very lightheaded.

"I did," she responded.

"…How?"

Weasley shrugged. "They're not very strong, truth be told. They don't have a lot of magic—they drain the life out of other things, operating through deceit and tricking their prey into putting themselves it stupid, vulnerable positions."

She gave him a stern look. "H-How'd you even get here?" Draco balked, pulling his robe more tightly around him. "How did you find me? ….Shouldn't you be in school?"

"Why would I tell you how I found you?" she snapped, completely ignoring his question about her not being at Hogwarts. "Then I wouldn't be able to find you again if you stupidly decide to run off."

Draco's eyes flickered to his bag in the corner… which Ginny Weasley was currently standing in front of.

"You shouldn't have followed me here," he growled, getting to his feet and ignoring the wave of dizziness that coursed through him. "I was fine, I was—I was just about to see him, to—"

"To _die!_ " Ginny snarled. "Malfoy, were you not listening to a word I just said? Those banshees were about to kill you! You should be kissing my feet right now, I just saved your sorry life!"

"You just interrupted something very important!" Draco snapped. "You don't understand what I was doing—I was _there_ , Weasley, I saw him, I _know_ it was him—"

"You were having a fit, Malfoy!" Ginny's enraged face turned desperate and pleading. "You were probably having a fever dream while they were sucking the life out of you!"

" _It wasn't a dream!"_

Draco's outcry was so loud and unexpected that even he was shocked. Ginny backed away, looking frightened.

"It wasn't a dream… It was real, I know it was. I saw him, he was there… You assholes all think I'm crazy, I know it, but he was there, and he _isn't_ dead…"

Tears were welling in Draco's eyes, searing hot. Ginny slowly and cautiously spoke after a long stretch of silence.

"I… I believe you," she said. "I believe that you saw that, and I d-don't think you're crazy. You may be right. Maybe h-he's not dead. Maybe he really is out there, somewhere… But that doesn't matter."

Her voice became so small and quiet at the end that Draco's anger dwindled. "It doesn't matter, Malfoy, because… he didn't choose us. He could have stayed. He could have, but he didn't. If he wants to come back, he will… But you can't hunt him down. It isn't your decision, Malfoy. You have to respect his."

"No."

Draco moved to step around her, towards his bag. "No?" Ginny parroted back, incredulous.

"No," Draco said again. "No, I'm going to find him, and—"

"You're going to die!" Ginny pointed her wand at his throat. "You think this is easy for the rest of us? You think you're the only one suffering from this? Do you think it's easy for Hermione, who never had a real friend until she met him? Do you think it's easy for Ron, who thought of him as a brother? Do you think it's easy for me, when—"

Ginny's breath hitched, a sob cutting off the rest of her sentence. "…You're going to get yourself killed if you keep doing this, Malfoy… People are worried about you. Your parents already had to go through your death once… Don't make them experience it for real."

Draco scoffed, despite the fact that his heart felt heavy with guilt. "My parents will be fine, because _I_ will be fine."

"Your parents are _anything_ but fine," Ginny growled. "Your mother, in particular, is going crazy. She and your father are at the Ministry nearly every day, driving _my_ father mad, by the way—apparently they seem to think it's my dad's job to find you—as well as everyone else's. Your mum's offering stupid amounts of gold to anyone who can help them—"

"Oh, is that it, then?" Draco interrupted, sneering. "You've come to turn me in? Collect some reward money for having found the sole heir to the Malfoy family?"

Ginny looked so insulted by this that Draco almost flinched. "You think I've been looking for you for money?" When Draco didn't say anything, she jabbed her wand into his chest, seething.

"I don't give a _damn_ about your money or your name. I came looking for you because I can't stand to see parents weeping over the possibility of their only son's death. I came looking for you because I don't want to see anyone else die at all, not even you, you arrogant shit. I came looking for you to stop you, because I know that _you_ know that H-Harry wouldn't want you to do this."

Hearing her say his name made Draco's face pale. She looked suddenly so desperate and sad.

"And besides… I found this."

Ginny rummaged through her own bag, shocking Draco with what she revealed.

It was his book. The first book, the black one he'd been writing in at Grimmauld Place. The diary which looked just like the one that his father had slipped into her cauldron, years ago…

She held it in front of him like the sight of it didn't cause her horrible discomfort or pain. "I read it," she admitted shamelessly, dropping it on the stone table where it fell open on its spine. "I found it when I was helping Luna clean Grimmauld Place up, in the library… I want to know how it ends. I think the world should know how it ends."

Draco stared down at the diary. It had flipped to the very last page, where he could see Harry's messy, drunken scrawl.

_You are loved, you are loved, you are loved._

"Please stop this," Ginny whispered, begging. Tears were clinging to her lashes and streaming down her face. "Please…stop."

Draco was quiet for a long time.

He knew it was over.

"…Okay."

Ginny wiped her eyes and smiled. "I-I'm going to try and send your mother a message," she said, raising her wand. "We're way too far away to apparate straight back, and I've gotten pretty good at sending corporal patronuses—that, and I've seen more of your mother recently than I ever could have hoped to, so I'm sure it can find her—"

"I can do it," Draco said, making her eyebrows raise in disbelief. "Yes, I can, thank you very much." Draco grabbed his own wand, and then—

He paused. A happy thought. A real, truly happy thought. The idea seemed ludicrous, now.

But then he imagined his mother's smiling face, and how happy she would be to know that her wayward son was finally going to stop putting himself in danger…

" _Expecto patronum."_

The stag burst into life, a white and silvery creature that hovered before him. It waited, tilting its antlered head at him inquisitively.

"Mum," Draco started, his voice raw. "I… I'm okay, I'm perfectly safe, and… and I'm coming home."

The stag bowed its head and vanished.

Ginny was staring at him with huge eyes, completely stunned. "Yeah, I know," Draco muttered, running a hand through his hair. His own tears came back with a vengeance, blurring his vision. "Fuck me, right?"

When Ginny moved to hug him, Draco didn't stop her. In fact, he welcomed the warm embrace like his life depended on it, on having someone with whom he could share this horrible sadness for the first time since it had happened.

Harry was gone, and Draco couldn't bring him back.

They cried until they couldn't anymore.

* * *

Months later, somewhere on the other side of the world, a girl woke up to the sounds of a sharp tapping on glass.

An owl.

There was a massive, brown _owl_ scratching at her bedroom window. Her first inclination was to shoo it away, but then she saw that it had a package in its claws.

Feeling as though she might still be dreaming, the girl opened the window. The owl swooped in, dropped the package on her bed, and left again.

The girl was stunned, but not even that surreal experience could stop her from tearing the brown paper off of the package in seconds.

It was a book.

A black book—a diary, it seemed to be. There was a message written on the front cover.

' _Dear Melody,_

_I hope you like this work of fiction. This is the very first edition, one that took a stupid amount of time for me to finally put all in one volume and make-up all the backstory. It's a complicated story, but a good one, I promise._

_You may not know me, but I think you would like me, if you did. I think I would like you, too. I also think you would make a fine zombie killer. Oh, there is a check in the middle of this book. I hope I filled it out right. Anyway, it should be more than enough for a jet ski. Might I recommend the red one?_

_Sincerely,_

_An admirer.'_

Melody's jaw dropped when she found a check for fifty thousand dollars.

And maybe she would have ran out of her house right then and there, screaming her head off and going to buy a jet ski—or twelve—but she didn't.

Instead, she read.

She read the entire book, which she discovered was titled 'House of Ghosts'. She read all day, every single word. She found herself identifying with a girl named Hermione Granger and laughing at a boy named Ronald Weasley. She rooted for the tragic hero named Harry Potter, and was somehow both terrified and enchanted by this villain whose name nobody dared to speak.

And the narrator? Well, she felt as though she knew Draco Malfoy personally, like he was speaking to her and her alone when he wrote.

By the time she had finished it, she was crying. And even though she knew it was a work of fiction, that none of them were real—Harry, Hermione, Ron, Draco—she figured that didn't really matter.

She felt loved.


	7. Epilogue: Endless

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's not the end, it's just an end.  
> Thank you or reading. And don't worry... I'll let you know.

_Glory is that bright tragic thing_

_That for an instant_

_Means Dominion -_

_Warms some poor name_

_That never felt the Sun,_

_Gently replacing_

_In oblivion –_

Emily Dickinson

* * *

Exactly one human life time later, Draco Malfoy fell into a sleep from which he would not wake. Death came for him in the form of a tree, whose branches cradled him in a familiar way.

A yew tree.

Draco ran his hands along the bark and admired the many thin, long leaves—just like the tree in the yard of his childhood home. Yet as his gaze shifted beyond the branches, he noticed that he was not in his front lawn.

In fact, he did not appear to be anywhere at all.

Above him was a dazzling light, like sunshine, only brighter. It was beautiful and inviting. Warm.

Below him was…confusing. Draco couldn't quite make it out, the colors kept shifting in an odd way. What he could see, however, was the roots of the tree. They did not burrow deep into the Earth, for there was no ground in which they could go. Instead, they hovered in the empty air, a network of intricate, spindly limbs that were more complicated even than the branches in which he sat.

Draco was high in the tree's canopy, but he could climb higher. Right up into the light, it looked like. He stared up into the ethereal, glistening rays and pondered this.

"Hello."

Maybe the sound of his voice should have scared the piss out of him, or at the very least startled him, but it didn't. Draco glanced to his side to see Harry Potter sitting there, having suddenly and silently appeared, a small smile on his face.

Well. It was Harry and yet it wasn't Harry.

He was wearing that cloak which clung to his skin like it was a part of him, now—liquid light draped across his shoulders and pooling at his feet. Draco spied the golden ring on one hand, but if Harry had the Elder Wand, he couldn't see it.

"…Hello," Draco eventually responded, like the elusive Master of Death just showing up in his subconscious yew tree with him was perfectly normal.

Harry looked up at the branches appreciatively. "This is nice," he commented, the holy light from above making his green eyes glow like neon.

"Am I dead?"

Draco asked the question in the same way one might inquire about the weather or what was for dinner. The smile slid from Harry's lips.

"…Yes."

Draco just nodded, surprisingly unsurprised. "Thought so."

They were quiet for a time. Draco stared at Harry's unnaturally white face and vibrant eyes, and the questions started forming.

"What happened?" he asked first. "After the veil. You and the Dark Lord didn't die. Right? You're the Master of Death. You didn't die when you went through the veil, did you?"

"No," Harry answered. "I didn't die. I didn't, but… He did." He paused, and his brilliant eyes darkened a fraction.

But a moment later and that easy smile was back on his lips. "It's been a hell of time, you know. Master of Death. It's not anything like what you'd think. I've been existing in a billion different places at once at yet nowhere at all. I've been stretched across galaxies that shouldn't even exist. I've witnessed unquestionable love, I've smelled passionate hatred. I've tasted jealously on the back of my tongue, leaving a flavor there that I still can't quite rid myself of…"

He shuddered. "What does jealousy taste like?" Draco couldn't help but ask.

" _Bitter_."

"Hm."

Harry ran a hand through his hair, which seemed, in Draco's opinion, somehow even messier than before.

"I went looking for you, you know," Draco said, watching him mess up his hair distastefully.

Harry gave him a shrewd look. "Yeah," he said softly. "…I know."

"Well, what the _fuck_ , then?" Draco snapped, feeling the strongest emotion he had yet since appearing in the branches of a yew tree— _annoyance_. "Why didn't you talk to me? I almost died, like… I don't even know how many times! If you knew I was looking for you, why didn't you show up?"

"It doesn't work like that," Harry answered. "My choices are limited and hands frequently tied. It isn't an easy thing, to just become visible to someone. I've been trying to figure out how the Peverall brothers summoned Death like that… As well as a million other things."

"…Was that really you, when I was in New Orleans, then?" Draco pressed on. "When I was delirious and getting the life sucked out of me by banshees, was that really you?"

Harry's face went uncomfortably blank again. He looked not at Draco when he spoke, but at the trunk of the massive yew tree.

"Yes… That was me. I was there. And…"

His breath hitched. He shook his head, seemingly abandoning that statement in favor of another one. "I'm sorry. I didn't have any control over what was happening around you—it was your dream, after all. I knew you were dying. I should have stopped it. I shouldn't have let you chase me. I was just… I was in a bit of a dark phase, I suppose you could say."

Draco's brows raised. Harry looked at him with an extremely guilty expression on his face. "I was just…lonely," he elaborated.

"Oh."

Harry then turned his attention to the thin leaves, trailing his fingers across them almost lovingly. "I've been through so much, and yet it feels as though nothing at all has happened. I am eternal and I am fleeting. I fear I've been the cause of many tears and shattered people. I've tried so many things, and yet it's as though no matter what I do, it all falls apart. I attempt to gift happiness to one person, only to find that it has unintended consequences somewhere else. It's like weaving a tapestry out of living threads—only the moment I finish weaving something over here, a section over there has come unraveled. I cannot do it. I cannot fabricate perfection."

He sighed heavily. Draco stared at him, eyes wide. "But you're the Master of Death," he said. "Can't you do anything?"

"Ha! Hardly," Harry shouted, grinning. He looked as human then as Draco had seen him yet. "I wouldn't say I'm a Master of _anything_ , not as I am, not doing what I'm doing. I'm working on something, you know. Something I probably shouldn't… Trying to _unbecome_ , if you can fathom such a thing. And I'm up against some incredible obstacles. Time, for one, makes no sense at all. It's like a Ferris wheel that just comes unhinged at inopportune intervals, barreling straight through my handiwork whenever it damn well pleases and then disappearing just quickly. And Fate _is_ fickle; I keep pricking my fingers on it and getting it caught in my throat. It… It tastes like jealousy."

Harry said the last part with a look of dawning comprehension, like he was only just now making that connection. He threw his head back and laughed loudly afterwards, as though this was a very funny joke.

Draco could do nothing but stare. "What? Oh, quit doing that," Harry said, frowning suddenly and pointing at him.

Draco looked around, like maybe he had done something and hadn't realized it. "Doing what?"

" _That_ , looking at me like everything I'm saying is meaningful poetry or something. It's not. I'm just…talking."

"Well, quit saying poetic shit, then," Draco muttered.

They glared at each other for a moment, silent, before they both started laughing at the same time.

The light above them became suddenly brighter. Draco's eye drifted up to it, and his head started to feel…funny. "I'm supposed to go up there, aren't I?"

"…You could," Harry said quietly. "It is for you."

"Well, I don't want to stay here!" Draco shouted. "I don't want to become a ghost!"

Harry's jaw fell open. "Is _that_ how ghosts are made?" he balked. "They just don't make a choice? I've been chasing my shadow trying to figure that out—and—oh, it's so simple!" He put a hand on Draco's shoulder, giving him a meaningful look. "Thank you."

"Oh, you know me," Draco said, and he couldn't help but notice that Harry's hand seemed bigger than it had before. "Always trying to help."

The light was getting more vibrant, and Draco felt like he was getting… smaller?

"Draco," Harry said. "You have a choice. You can either go up there, towards that light, and go beyond… Or you can jump."

Draco looked down towards the roots, where below there was indescribable chaos. Colors that were contorting and blending together, like an oil painting come to life.

He suddenly felt very afraid. He was just a small child in a big tree, and what if his magic didn't save him?

"Last time I jumped from a yew tree, it didn't work out well for me," he whispered, his voice so much feebler, now.

"Are you inclined to think that history will forever repeat itself?"

Harry asked it very seriously. Draco bit at his nails, nervous. "I-I don't know."

He glanced back down at the writhing, kaleidoscopic space below.

"It's okay," Harry said reassuringly. He smiled. "You can do it. Jump."

"Will you come, too?"

Harry shook his head. "No, I can't. Not here, not like this. I still have a few things to finish. But don't worry… I'll find you."

Draco looked unconvinced. The light was getting brighter, blindingly so.

"Go on, then!"

A man in silver was laughing at him, but in a friendly way, not a condescending one. He removed his hand from his shoulder and gestured out towards the colorful world of endless possibilities.

"Jump, Draco!"

…Who?

"Jump!"


End file.
